


WIP Amnesty 2017

by Lys ap Adin (lysapadin)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball, Voltron: Legendary Defender, ダイヤのA | Daiya no A | Ace of Diamond
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, F/M, M/M, various fandoms, various pairings - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 08:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13210395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lysapadin/pseuds/Lys%20ap%20Adin
Summary: Sometimes you just gotta give in and admit you're not gonna finish a thing. Here is a collection of various bits and bobs that I've given up on.





	1. Kuroko no Basuke: Camp Pinetree (Imayoshi)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wacky summer camp AU starring Imayoshi as a camp counselor.

It was five minutes into the first official day of his summer job, and Shouichi was already having serious second thoughts about it. "'Go on,' they said. 'It'll be _fun_ ,' they said. 'It's better than flipping burgers,' they said," he muttered under his breath. "Shouichi, you are such a sucker."

The cause of his second thoughts ignored him, too busy clutching his inhaler in one hand and staring after the rapidly retreating tailpipe of his parents' car. There was a distinct wobble in his lower lip. And, as of five minutes ago, he was Shouichi's responsibility for the summer. 

Suddenly flipping burgers didn't sound all that bad, but so much for that. Shouichi squared his shoulders as the car disappeared around the last bend in the road. "So you're Ryou? I'm Shouichi. Welcome to Camp Pinetree!"

For a minute, it looked like Shouichi was going to win the ribbon for first camper to burst into tears, but the kid was made of somewhat sterner stuff than he looked. Sort of. He mustered a trembly little smile which was just about the most tragic thing Shouichi'd ever seen and mumbled something that sounded like, "'lo."

When in doubt, proceed like you know what you're doing; nine times out of ten, no one can tell the difference. Shouichi smiled at him and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Our cabin is this way. Let me show you and you can get settled in. You're the first one here, so you get your choice of bunks, lucky you." He hoisted one of the kid's suitcases—he had two, plus an overstuffed backpack—and manfully restrained a grunt at how heavy it was—did the kid have rocks in there or what? "Right this way, Ryou."

They passed a couple of the other counselors coming back from escorting charges of their own back to the cabins; Nijimura gave him an absent nod and Ootsubo glanced between Shouichi and Ryou before tossing Shouichi a sympathetic smile, one tinged with a certain amount of _better you than me_. Shouichi made a face at him over Ryou's head.

The cabins were set well back from the camp entrance, up towards the crest of the hill. By the time they reached Cabin Three and Shouichi opened the door with a flourish, Ryou was pink and out of breath. Maybe it was only the heavy luggage and the walk uphill. Shouichi sure hoped so. "Here we are!" He swept a hand at the cabin, which was about as minimalist as they came—sturdy, scarred bunk beds and two equally battered dressers, a couple of elderly fans, and the screened-off corner where Shouichi's own bed was hidden. "You can have whichever bunk you like, and up to two drawers. When you're all unpacked, I'll show you where we'll stow your luggage for the summer."

He gave the kid a minute to look around the cabin. "Will you be okay here while I go back and wait for the rest of your cabin-mates?" Ryou nodded without saying anything, still clutching his inhaler. Shouichi stifled a sigh and left him to it.

The campers were arriving in earnest by the time he got back to the camp gates. The staffers were busy introducing themselves to parents and checking the new arrivals off on their clipboards. Harasawa waved Shouichi over to introduce him to two more of his assigned campers, Susa (whose lack of expression didn't give away much) and Wakamatsu (who might not have looked cheerful but was at least looking around with a certain amount of interest). Shouichi introduced himself and politely ignored their farewells to their respective parents—Susa dignified, Wakamatsu complaining when his mother kissed him goodbye—and escorted them back up the hill to Cabin Three, where Sakurai seemed to have claimed one of the bottom bunks and was transferring the contents of his suitcases to a drawer. He made the introductions around and let the three of them to it.

Then it was back down the hill to wait for number four and watch the influx of campers, some clearly overjoyed to be arriving at Camp Pinetree's august gates and others who were less so. There was an exuberant redhead accompanied by his more restrained brother—no, not brother, the names weren't the same—who both seemed disappointed to be assigned different cabins. Then there was the tall, skinny kid with glasses and taped fingers who just looked horrified by how much Mother Nature there was surrounding him, and the blond kid with four— _four!_ —full-sized suitcases to his name. That one went to Cabin Two, Kasamatsu's cabin, and Kasamatsu looked frankly appalled as the kid blithely dragooned him into helping haul all that luggage up the hill. 

Shouichi couldn't help laughing, which he probably shouldn't have—Kasamatsu gave him a dirty look for it—which just went to show that he who laughed last laughed longest, because Shouichi ended up with Aomine.

The flow of campers slowed to a trickle and then petered out to nothing with the last name on the list not checked off; the other counselors had drifted off to oversee their charges and most of the staff had gone to make final preparations for the orientation in the afternoon. That left Shouichi and Harasawa waiting as the window for dropping off the campers came to a close. "Maybe he's not coming after all?" Shouichi suggested, though given the fee the camp charged, not to mention the forfeiture of that fee, that seemed crazy to him.

"Maybe." Harasawa tapped his pen against his clipboard. "Could be running behind, too. We'll give them a few minutes."

It was his call to make, so Shouichi contented himself with watching the squirrels and wondering how his cabin was getting along. 

The minutes crept along; after a quarter of an hour, Harasawa cleared his throat. "Well, so much for—"

That was when a car came hurtling around the corner and barreled up the road to the camp gates. There was a harried couple in the front seat who jumped out of the car almost before it had come to a stop. They left the engine running. "Are we too late?" the woman cried, breathless.

"Er, no." Harasawa gave them a look askance but then rallied. "Welcome to Camp Pinetree. I'm Harasawa. You must be the Aomines."

They were, and were full of apologies for running late. Shouichi didn't pay much attention to that, since he couldn't see a third passenger in the car. Curiosity got the better of him; he approached the vehicle and peered into the back seat. Then he _stared_ , because there was a long-legged, sullen boy folded up back there, and he appeared to be tied up. "Um," he said, honestly not sure what he was supposed to do about that. "Why is your son tied up like that?"

The woman laughed nervously. "Oh, Daiki was a little reluctant to come to camp, but I'm sure that he'll have a wonderful time now that he's here!"

Meanwhile her husband was removing a large suitcase from the trunk. "I wouldn't untie him until we're out of sight," he announced as he slammed the trunk closed. He extracted his son from the back seat just as briskly and deposited him at their feet in spite of the way the kid was clearly letting himself be pure dead weight. "We'll be back in August."

"Have a good time, dear, and make sure you behave!" his mother added, already in the car and pulling the door shut after herself.

As quickly as that, they were pulling away and racing back down the road, leaving their sullen son squirming at Harasawa and Shouichi's feet.

Shouichi was the first to break the silence. "So… is this where we call Child Protection Services, or…?"

Harasawa sighed. "If only it were so easy." He crouched next to Aomine and began to pick at his bonds. "Welcome to Camp Pinetree. It's a pleasure to have you join us this summer. I'm Harasawa; this is Shouichi, who is in charge of your cabin."

Aomine glared at them both impartially. "I want my lawyer."

"No lawyers allowed at summer camp," Harasawa said, and made a satisfied sound as the ropes came loose. "But we might be able to arrange your one telephone call after you get settled and unpacked."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ultimately this was gonna be a wacky summer camp hijinks story with Imayoshi and Kasamatsu flirting their way through the various shenanigans, but honestly, I mostly just wanted to write about Aomine getting dropped off a la "The Ransom of Red Chief" by his long-suffering parents, so here we are.


	2. Daiya no Ace: The Urban Fantasy AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Miyuki is a vampire, Sawamura is a wannabe hunter of monsters, and Chris really just wants a drink.

The first time Miyuki Kazuya meets Sawamura Eijun, they do not hit it off with one another.

That's not unusual for Kazuya; even he knows he has a terrible personality and a vast talent for annoying people, but this time he can honestly say that it's not his fault. Not exactly his fault, anyway. Certainly all he's doing is having a nice, quiet dinner when Sawamura decides to assault him—just when things are getting good, too.

And Sawamura literally does assault him; the first thing he does is try to shove a stake through Kazuya's sternum without even doing him the courtesy of challenging him first.

It sort of sets the tone for their relationship for a long time after that.

Fortunately for Kazuya, Sawamura has more enthusiasm than actual skill and he has also seriously underestimated the amount of force and concomitant upper body strength it takes to shove a pointy piece of wood through several centimeters of bone, muscle, organs, and other such gristly bits.

That doesn't mean it doesn't sting like hell—one second Kazuya is busy with his dinner, absorbed in the heady mix of blood and lust, the next there's a starburst of pain radiating out from a spot below his right shoulder blade—his right shoulder blade, because Sawamura neglected to account for the fact that he's stabbing Kazuya from behind. Also, like every other amateur hunter Kazuya has ever met, he assumes the heart is positioned much lower in the chest than it actually is.

Too bad for them, though Kazuya does regret the obvious lapse in educational standards in these decaying modern times.

Kazuya pulls off his dinner partner's throat, leaving him sagging against the wall all dazed and unfocused while Kazuya growls at the infuriating pain and whirls on the person who's inflicting it on him.

The motion tears the stake out of his attacker's hands and out of Kazuya's back, which is an immediate relief—mostly a relief, there's some splinters left behind that are going to drive him nuts until he gets them out or his body manages to expel them. "What the ever-loving fuck?"

His first impression of Sawamura Eijun is one of movement coupled with wide, startled eyes as the kid—yes, just a kid, late teens at the best, though this is a detail Kazuya won't really absorb properly until later—as the kid throws himself backward with more grace than he has any right to possess. "Back, fiend!" he yells, brandishing—is that a cross?

For fuck's sake. Popular culture has a great deal to answer for.

Kazuya growls, half from pain and half from disgust. "That only works on vampires from a culture that cares, you little idiot." 

Not that this fazes the kid, who fumbles with something in his vest as Kazuya lunges for him. That's how Kazuya ends up with a face full of what is probably supposed to be holy water, which is briefly distracting but not much of an actual deterrent as he body-checks the kid into the alley wall opposite. "What part of not Christian are you not getting?" he demands.

Maybe he's getting careless in his old age, that he allowed the kid to sneak up on him; certainly he's careless once he's got the kid cornered against the wall. He's definitely not expecting the sinuous way the kid twists in his grip, like he's part naga or something, or the way the kid fucking knees him in the balls, who even does that?

That's what Kazuya would be asking if not for the fact that fucking fuck, that hurts like taking a walk in the noonday sun. 

The kid takes full advantage of the way Kazuya reels back from him and fucking pounces, tackling Kazuya to the ground while Kazuya curses from the pain in his groin and then his skull when it knocks against the pavement.

The kid kneels on his chest and produces another stake from the little demons of chaos only know where, and that's it. Kazuya's done playing.

He snarls, a tinge of red washing over everything as he surges up, shoving the kid off him and continuing to his feet as the kid lands in a pile of boxes and other refuse. Kazuya can smell the spike of his adrenaline and fear and excitement; the blend sings in his predator's senses. He leaps after the kid, slamming into him as he struggles to untangle himself from the bags and boxes of garbage. Kazuya seizes his wrist before he can think to bring the stake into play, grabs the kid's other wrist to pin it in place, and drops his weight down to pin the kid's hips before he can get any bright ideas there.

(He's going to pay for exerting himself on an empty stomach and injured body later, but that's something to worry about later.)

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Words are difficult in the haze of anger, but they're more appropriate than the alternative, which would be ripping out the kid's throat, something that all Kazuya's instincts are in favor of doing. 

The kid stares at him, all defiance, though his fear is a sharp note in Kazuya's senses, sharp enough to cut through the sour smell of decay rising from the garbage around them. He hasn't surrendered, even though Kazuya has him down and pinned. He's still squirming, straining against Kazuya's grip like all he needs is half a chance. He's not going to get it. Kazuya shows him his teeth, which most human types (and many metahuman types) usually take as a sign they're in deep trouble. The kid goes pale, sure, but still doesn't give in. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with."

Popular culture has so much to answer for. Even so, Kazuya can't help being just a little bit impressed by the kid's guts, if not his brains. "Kid, you've been watching all the wrong kinds of television."

The kid flares up, though not for the reason Kazuya would have expected. "I'm seventeen!"

His rage is subsiding now that he's got his prey at his mercy—the kid isn't his prey, but instincts are what they are—so Kazuya can manage a huff of laughter. "Just a baby, then."

He utterly fails to be surprised by the way this enrages the kid, who sputters at him in outrage. 

That's boring; Kazuya ignores it. "Yeah, yeah, save it for after your first century." Time to get down to business. He squeezes the wrist of the hand still clutching the stake until the kid shuts up and goes a little pale. "What's up with assaulting me out of nowhere?"

The kid gives him a look like a confused spaniel. "What?"

Kazuya has the urge to shake the kid, but he quells it. "You tried to shove a stake through me, you little idiot. What did I ever do to you?"

He might as well be speaking some other language for all the comprehension on the kid's face. Finally he says, slow and distinct, "You're a vampire."

Kazuya feels his lips curling back from his fangs; he should have guessed. "That all you've got?"

"You were feeding on that poor—um?" The kid cranes his head, blinking a little.

Their scuffle has only taken a couple minutes at most, but it's enough—Kazuya takes a risk, looking away from the kid long enough to glance to the side and see that Kuramochi has pulled himself together. He saunters over to stand over them, wearing a smirk that means Kazuya is going to get shit for this for the next several months. He hooks his thumbs in his pockets, grinning down at them both, and says, "He sure was, brat. Getting him to eat me was the whole idea."

The kid's eyes are so wide that Kazuya can see white all the way around his pupils. "You're a guy."

"I sure am," Kuramochi says, still cheery—at least if a person is utterly clueless, like this crazy kid is, and can't see the glitter in his eyes. 

"You're a guy," the kid blurts out, looking back and forth between them. "Both of you!"

Kuramochi isn't smiling anymore, though it's even odds whether the kid can see the difference between a toothy grin and the baring of teeth. He stares down at the kid and says, "You could call in that favor the two of them owe you."

Kazuya gets the meaning of that apparent non sequitur, even if the kid doesn't. "I'm not wasting a favor from them on this kid," he says. Getting the Kominatos to owe a person is difficult enough to arrange in the first place. No way is he blowing it on this clueless bumpkin brat with delusions of being a hero. And this kid has got to be from the sticks, where hating on things that going bump in the night is encouraged. "Here's a hint for you, kid," he says. "Some of us just want to live and let live, and we're allowed to do that as long as we're not breaking any laws while doing it." Kuramochi snorts, but now's not the time to go into the gaps between what the laws say and what the Law does. "Trying to shove a stake through a guy having a quiet dinner with a friend is what we might charitably call an assault. You get me?"

The kid frowns at him. "But you're a monster." He sounds more puzzled than hostile, but that makes it pretty clear where he stands. 

Kuramochi snorts again, the sound bitter. "Give it up, man. He's not going to listen."

It's probably true. Anyone who cares enough about things that go bump in the night to actually take to the streets isn't likely to get the difference between being a vampire and being a monster. Still, it's worth saying. Maybe the kid will remember it when he tries to stake someone who isn't as nice as Kazuya is, during the part where his life flashes before his eyes before he dies. He shakes the kid once, hard, to make sure he's got his full attention and to remind him what he's up against. "You're wrong, kid. I may not be human, but I'm not a monster. Do yourself a favor and learn the difference. You might live long enough to see twenty if you do."

He lets go of the kid and gets the hell out of range of that stake before the kid can react—not that the kid does anything more than sit up, looking baffled. "What are you doing?"

"Go home, since some idiot kid ruined my evening," Kazuya retorts, right before he takes a running leap, catches the bottom of the fire escape, and uses it to leap to the nearest roof.

Kuramochi follows, half a step behind him as an indignant should echoes out of the alley behind them. "I'm not a kid!"

"Didn't deny the idiot part," Kuramochi notes a minute and several blocks later, once Kazuya lets common sense and his injury slow him down.

Kazuya snorts. "I noticed that, too."

"And yet he did get the drop on you," Kuramochi continues, neutral, like he's conceding a point in the kid's favor and not just making fun of Kazuya.

He grimaces. "I didn't see you noticing him any sooner than I did."

Kuramochi grins at him. "Maybe I thought you had everything under control."

"Maybe you're full of shit," Kazuya counters.

"Maybe you'll never know for sure," Kuramochi sing-songs, laughing when Kazuya growls at him and tries to swat at him.

It sets his back to screaming and itching, a fresh reminder of the hole there and the splinters lodged in his flesh, plus all the showing off he did trying to intimidate the kid. Kazuya doesn't think he winces, but Kuramochi's annoyingly observant in his own way. He changes the subject as they leap the alley between buildings. "Looks like he got you fairly good." 

"Nah, it wasn't even anywhere near where he should have been aiming."

"Uh-huh." It's the audible equivalent of an eyeroll, so Kazuya's not too surprised when the next thing Kuramochi says is, "You wanna come back to my place, finish what we started?"

It would be stupid to say no to the offer, but then, Kazuya hasn't particularly noticed age bringing him all that much wisdom. "No, but thanks, I'm not in the mood anymore. I think I'll just call it a night."

He puts up with Kuramochi because the guy knows when to lay off. Right now he looks disapproving, but he lets it go. "Suit yourself." He grins again. "No skin off my nose if you wanna get over being so embarrassed in private."

"Fuck you."

Kuramochi just laughs at him. "You said you weren't in the mood."

Kazuya growls at him, half-exasperated and half-amused—he did walk right into that one. "Yeah, yeah." He jerks his head. "This is me."

Kuramochi accepts the white lie politely. "Call if you change your mind about coming over," he says, casual, and then, "Try not to cry yourself to sleep over getting staked in the back." He swings himself over the edge of the roof when Kazuya lunges for him, cackling all the way down to street level.

"I hate you!" Kazuya yells after him. 

"You love me!" Kuramochi yells back, before he takes off, darting out to the sidewalk and losing himself in the midnight crowds.

"Asshole," Kazuya says out loud, not without fondness, and then turns towards home.

It's a relief to reach his apartment—convention would name it a lair, but that's far more dignity than Kazuya feels his tiny cubbyhole really warrants—and close the door on the world outside. Solitude means he can stop pretending that his back isn't burning and itching with the embedded splinters or that he isn't famished from his exertions and healing. His first stop is the fridge to retrieve a blood pack, which he slurps down over the sink. It actually tastes good, despite being cold, the chemical aftertaste of the anticoagulants, and the fact that it's not human blood. Kazuya grimaces and goes for seconds on the way to the bathroom. 

The mirror is useless for his purposes, but his shirt tells him all he really needs to know when he peels it off and inspects the ragged hole in the back. Kazuya makes a face at it; the kid may be an amateur and an idiot, but if Kazuya isn't currently dust on the wind, it's not because the kid wasn't trying. Maybe he'll even be able to respect that once his back stops giving him grief. 

For the time being he stretches and strains to pick the major splinters out of his back and, once he's decided that no amount of acrobatics is going to make that happen, finishes his blood pack and takes a shower. The hot water helps rinse away the major debris, at any rate, and Kazuya retires to his futon, stretching out on his stomach to settle in for a long, itchy night of terrible television.

At least the kid will probably get himself dead before Kazuya has to worry about crossing paths with him again.

Given their first meeting, Kazuya later figures that he should have known better. Sawamura Eijun is hardly that obliging.

 

 

Which is not to say that the kid isn't doing his level best to get himself killed the next time Kazuya encounters him, just a few nights later. It's the downswing of a busy night, and Kazuya's just come off the clock and thinking about how he wants to spend the last few hours before dawn when he hears the scuffling in the alley below and indulges his curiosity by looking.

This time the kid has clearly bitten off more than he can chew. It's him against three vampires that Kazuya vaguely recognizes as being a long way from home. They've got the kid trapped in a blind alley. This late in the summer, the heat lays over the city like a wet blanket, but the movement at street level causes eddies in the air, just enough that Kazuya can taste human adrenaline on the air—not fear, thought Kazuya suspects that's because the kid is too ignorant to know how much trouble he's in right now.

"That's right, it was me," he says, loud enough for Kazuya to hear. "Was he a friend of yours? I'm so sorry for your loss."

Kazuya hardly knows whether to be horrified or impressed that it sound like the kid actually managed to kill one of Kite's goons, but it does explain why these three are in this part of town. Kite doesn't suffer challenges to his authority. This is going to be messy. And more trouble than it's actually worth, since this isn't Kite's territory at all. 

Well, damn.

Kazuya studies the alley below, the high wall to the kid's back and the narrow breadth of it, considering the angles and his options. There's a stack of shipping pallets blocking the view into the alley—a good strategic move on the part of the goons, yes, except for the fact that Kazuya is on the scene, too.

Mind made up, Kazuya drops down to ground level as the goons advance on the kid, who still doesn't have the sense to smell like he's scared.

Kazuya wrenches one of the boards off a shipping pallet and breaks it over his knee so that when the goons turn to look, he's showing his teeth and holding a pair of improvised stakes. "Evening, guys. You get lost on your way to the store?"

The one who looks like he's probably in the lead here, Kazuya things his name might be Akazawa, shows his own fangs. "That's none of your business, is it? Get lost, Miyuki."

Kazuya ignores the fangs and the warning. "You're not possibly thinking of doing something that we'd regret having to deal with, are you?"

"Who's we, asshole? You don't speak for anyone on this side of town." Akazawa sneers. "You don't speak for anyone but yourself."

"Maybe, maybe not, but I have to live here, and I sure as hell don't want to deal with what'll happen when the cops find that kid scattered across the neighborhood in soggy pieces." (The kid says, "I'm not a kid, damn it!" indignantly, but no one pays any attention to him.) "The cops just love it when a human turns up dead around here, you know?"

Akazawa's expression doesn't change, but one of his assistant goons grins, nasty. "Yeah, that's the point—"

"Shut up," Akazawa snaps. 

Geez, Kite really needs to think about his standards for henchmen, maybe institute a basic competency exam before giving them the bite. This is just sad. "Sure, I'm sure Narumiya will just love getting to hold the bag for that." Kazuya shakes his head. "That won't ruin his day at all."

Akazawa scowls, but he's bright enough to take the point even if he doesn't like it. "Get the kid," he tells the other two.

Kazuya is tempted—so tempted, he's still got a couple splinters taking their sweet time working their way out—but no. He just can't. "Yeah, no. Afraid you'd better not do that, either." He shifts onto the balls of his feet, ready to move. "I'm not much interested in being an accessory to murder, y'know?"

Akazawa's two buddies pause while Akazawa himself gives him a long look. Then he sneers. "You would say that, wouldn't you? Fucking blood traitor scum." He jerks his chin. "Thanks for making my job easier. Kill him."

That's what Kazuya has been waiting for; he's moving even before Akazawa's buddies are, rushing them while they're still processing the change of priorities. Kite's taste for stupid henchmen serves Kazuya well—he gets a stake into the one on the left, up and through the rib cage and right into the heart, and whirls on the other one before the first one even begins to dissolve into dust. The other one is dumb, but not dumb enough to stand there gaping over his friend's demise. He snarls, side-stepping it when Kazuya goes for him with the other improvised stake. The next few moments probably seem like a blur of motion to the kid, a flurry of punches and kicks and snarls as the other vampire tries to tear Kazuya's head off his shoulders and Kazuya does his level best to return the favor.

The thing that the ones who run in packs always forget is that while there's strength in numbers, the ones who manage to survive on their own have to be pretty damn strong themselves to do it. And Kazuya has been surviving on his own for a long fucking time.

His opponent manages to rake claws across Kazuya's face and nearly takes out one of Kazuya's eyes doing it, but it costs him dearly—puts him right where Kazuya wants him, where he can drive his stake right through his rib cage and into his heart. He crumbles to ash, too. 

Akazawa is smarter than either of his goons were. He attacks Kazuya before he can recover, snarling as he lunges forward. "Fucking scum," he spits as Kazuya deflects one grasping hand but not the other, which closes on his wrist with bone-crushing force. Kazuya grunts as the tiny bones in his hand crunch and grind, trying to let the pain flow through him without overwhelming him. One-handed, there's not as much he can do—not as much as Akazawa can do, either, when Kazuya catches his other hand and hangs onto it. It leaves them deadlocked, straining against each other, and Kazuya tastes air on his fangs as fury tinges the world red. 

Akazawa snarls at him as Kazuya tightens his hand around his fist, the sound feral against the pop and snap of fragile bone. "I'm going to put you down like the dog you are—"

Kazuya snarls back, straining against him. "Big talk," he says, twisting away from it when Akazawa tries to bite him. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Akazawa has just long enough to remember that there's still one more person in the alley before a stake erupts from his chest—on the appropriate side and in the right spot this time—and he dissolves into dust.

Kazuya takes a couple quick steps back, since the kid still has a solid grip on the stake he just shoved through Akazawa's chest. He's acutely conscious of broken bones in his hand and keeps a wary eye on the kid, who looks at him, clearly baffled about what happens next.

Kazuya pulls his shoulders straight while calculating his escape routes, then says, "At least your aim is getting better."

The kid bristles at that, because of course he does. "My aim is great!"

"Oh, so you meant to puncture my spleen the other night? My mistake." Kazuya grins when the kid flushes. It's too easy, but he's never minded an easy laugh. "That's what I thought."

"Shut up!" The kid scowls at him and belatedly realizes that this is a weird situation, all things considered. "What are you even doing here? You're a vampire, too!"

So much for being able to have a civil conversation. "The cops don't like it when you squishy mortals show up dead, and I don't like it when the cops show up looking for whodunit." Kazuya lets his lips peel back from his fangs; the kid is smart enough to see it's not a smile, judging from the way he swallows. "Most of them to stake first and ask questions later. If Kite wants to risk it, he can do it in his own damn part of town and leave us out of it."

"Oh," the kid says, frowning. "Who's Kite?"

Kazuya can't bring himself to be surprised by the question, even though he'd really like to be. He stretches his fingers out; the pieces of his metacarpals grind against each other unpleasantly. Yeah, that's going to suck for a little while. "Kid, what are you even doing here?" he asks. " I mean, seriously, what in the world made you think this was a good career path?"

"My name is Sawamura, and I'm not a kid!" the kid spits. 

Kazuya rolls his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Why aren't you at home studying for your university entrance exams like a good boy instead of trying to commit suicide by vampire?"

Sawamura scowls at him. "Why do you even care?" 

"Call me curious. Besides, I saved your life. You owe me."

This makes Sawamura sputter in outrage. "You did not!"

"Believe me, kid, I did. I don't care if you did manage to get one of Kite's people, it was beginner's luck." Kazuya raises an eyebrow. "So what is it? Us monsters kill your family so you're out for revenge? You on a mission from your god? You're a little young to be making up for a tragic mistake, but stranger things have happened, I guess."

Sawamura gives him a look like he thinks Kazuya is crazy, but Kazuya's had a long, long time to get used to people giving him that look and it rolls right off him. "No, don't be stupid." He glares at Kazuya. "Why are you laughing? Stop it, it's not funny."

"I can't say that I agree with that." Kazuya flexes his wrist again, which makes it easy to control his laughter. "Look, no one starts trying to stake vampires just because they think it's cool, so what gives?" The sooner he figures out what's motivating this crazy kid, the sooner he can talk him down and get him on a fast train out of town—and why is Sawamura turning so red? Kazuya stares at him. "You've got to be kidding me."

Popular culture has so much to answer for.

"Shut up." Sawamura is glowing red, but he raises his chin anyway, defiant. "It's an important job!" He positively stinks of sincerity and earnest conviction.

How the hell is Kazuya supposed to argue with that? He doesn't think he can—or he doesn't have the patience to try, anyway. He looks at Sawamura's stubborn expression, and then inspiration hits him. If popular culture caused the problem, then let popular culture provide the solution. "You think it's that important, what are you doing running around without knowing what the hell you're doing? If you're really serious about this, you need training."

"I've had training," Sawamura protests. Kazuya gives him a long look and slowly raises his eyebrows. Sawamura flushes and amends his argument. "I've read things."

"The internet doesn't count," Kazuya says; the kid winces. "You need actual training. And lucky for you, I know just the person to do it." Lucky for him, it's not his good hand that's messed up, so he can dig into his pocket for a scrap of paper and his pen. He uncaps the pen with his teeth and braces the old receipt on his arm to scribble down a name and address before balling the paper up and tossing it at Sawamura. "Here. He'll get you straightened out if it kills you. Tell him Miyuki sent you."

The wad of paper bounces off Sawamura's chest while the kid gives him a suspicious look. "Why would you want me to be trained? How do I know this guy isn't one of your monster buddies?"

Kazuya lets the insult slide. "I guess you don't," he drawls. "But I figure you'll be more entertaining with some training, and this way you get a sporting chance. It's more than most people get, so you should make the most of it." He tests his wrist again; it's still bad, but he can probably manage the roof. "Have a nice night, kid. Try to stay alive."

Sawamura's indignant voice follows him up to the roof. "I'm not a kid, so stop calling me that!"

That encounter settles the question of what he's going to do with the rest of his night, at any rate. He leaves Sawamura to his own devices and stops off at home long enough to grab a snack, wash the mess off his face, and wrap his wrist before heading back out. He doesn't bother changing his clothes; the smell of the grave dust hanging on him will help him make his point.

There are a lot of places Mei could be this time of night, but Kazuya doesn't bother with the clubs and bars. He heads for Mei's apartment instead, following the ineffable sense of Mei's presence to its source, and presents himself to the concierge in the lobby. "I'm here to see Narumiya." It shouldn't be necessary—there's only one reason Kazuya ever comes around this place, and Mei's had the same Scandinavian expat working for him for decades now, but she doesn't much like Kazuya, so it can't be helped.

She favors him with a long, unfriendly look. "You got an appointment?"

Kazuya matches her stare for stare, fang for fang, and says, "Nope."

Mei's got enough ego as it is without his pandering to it.

She scowls at him, doing the kind of justice to the expression only a troll can really manage. "You can't see the boss without an appointment."

"That's funny, I seem to recall him leaving standing orders that I'm allowed in whenever I want." Kazuya folds his arms. "He doesn't like it when people disobey his orders." Every damn time, they've got to do this. The joys of trying to out-stubborn someone who spends half her time as an actual rock. 

"You got a name and some ID?" she demands.

Kazuya produces his wallet and identification for her, which she grudgingly and meticulously compares to a list, scrutinizing the ID and checking it under a UV light and against Kazuya's own face before conceding that yes, Kazuya is who he claims to be and yes, his name is on the list of individuals with automatic authorization to see Mei. "Fine," she grumbles as she surrenders his ID back into Kazuya's keeping. "I'll let him know you're on your way up." She shows him her fangs again, rows of granite polished teeth perfect for crushing bone. "Have a pleasant evening."

"You do the same," Kazuya says with every bit as much sincerity as she's shown him, and heads for the penthouse elevator.

The ride up is smooth and swift, but that doesn't stop Mei from being right there to meet Kazuya when the doors slide open. "Look what the cat dragged in," he says before he gets a closer look at Kazuya. "Huh. Fighting again, really?"

Kazuya ignores him and brushes past him, heading for the plush couches in the sunken living room and dropping himself across one. The windows open onto the night sky, showing the city's skyline in all its midnight glory. "You've got a problem with Kite."

"Hello, Mei, it's nice to see you. How are you this evening?" Mei sing-songs as he follows Kazuya over and takes the couch opposite his, settling himself there and smoothing the lines of his suit into place. "I'm just fine, thank you for asking. And I always have a problem with Kite. That's not news."

"I caught three of his people trying to kill a human in your territory," Kazuya says, ignoring Mei's reproof. "They're ash now, but I thought you might want to know."

Mei doesn't stop smiling, but he does go still. "You don't say." His eyes glitter, cold and promising mayhem.

"Yeah, I caught them on my way home from work." He waits for Mei to digress on the subject of his job, but nothing comes of it. "I guess that hunter kid wannabe got lucky with one of Kite's people. They were looking for vengeance."

Mei's about as far removed from the streets as it gets, but his people get him good intelligence. "Better luck than he had with you, I take it."

Kazuya is probably going to have to kill Kuramochi, but the guy's got it coming. "Fuck you, Mei." He shifts and settles his injured wrist across his stomach. "I stopped them, but I figured you'd want to know."

"Mm." Mei's quicksilver attention has already lighted on another subject. "You're still injured." 

That tone of flat disapproval probably works a lot better on his own people—Kazuya hopes it does, anyway. "I'm fine."

"You're a liar," Mei says as he reaches into his pocket and retrieves a slim phone. "And you can't take care of yourself—yes, this is Narumiya. Dinner for two, thank you."

"I've already eaten," Kazuya objects as Mei terminates the call. "And I can take care of myself just fine, thanks."

"You're walking disaster zone is what you are," Mei retorts. "It gives me physical pain to see how much of a mess you are." He flicks his fingers. "If you would just—"

"Not gonna happen," Kazuya says before Mei can get started. "So don't bother. And that's all I wanted, so you can cancel the room service. I'll be going—"

The couch is deep and comfortable and very reluctant to surrender its victims. Kazuya struggles against its embrace and places more weight on his bad wrist than it can bear. He hisses at the stab of pain.

Mei is standing over him between one blink and the next. "You're an idiot," he says, pushing Kazuya back down and ignoring his growl. "Shut up and stay put, asshole."

Kazuya glares up at him. "You're not my boss."

Mei's mouth twists, sulky. "Yes, I know, you've made that very clear." He continues to hold Kazuya in place. "Look, you stubborn bastard, just let me do you this favor for the favor you've done me."

"I'd rather just have you owe me one," Kazuya says as he stops trying to get up.

"I'm sure you would." Mei flops down next to him and leaves a hand on Kazuya's shoulder. It's almost like he doesn't trust Kazuya not to make a break for it. That's the drawback of having known each other for so long. "Too bad I don't like owing debts."

"Too bad," Kazuya agrees. He leans his head back, resting it against the supple cushions. 

It seems like they're going to lapse into comfortable quiet until the meal Mei's ordered shows up, so of course Mei goes and opens his mouth. "You doing all right, aside from getting staked in the back?"

"I'm going to kill Kuramochi," Kazuya announces instead of answering. 

Mei utters an inelegant snort. "No, you're not. You'd be telling stories on him if it had been the other way around and you know it."

"Please, I have far too much integrity to do any such thing."

"You're so full of shit your eyes are brown," Mei retorts. "And don't think I didn't notice you changing the subject, either."

For the love of the little demons of chaos. "I'm fine, Mei."

Mei's too stubborn to take that for an answer. "Are you sure? Are you even eating right, or are you still living on junk food?"

"Stop being such a snob. Blood is blood is blood."

Mei shudders and makes a pained sound. "It's no such thing. Honestly, Kazuya—"

Fortunately, or not, dinner arrives and keeps Mei from saying anything they'll have to argue about. 

Kazuya watches the man wheel the cart in and deftly arrange its contents on the low coffee table—the thermal-insulated carafe and glasses, snowy white napkins, and even a rose in a bud vase—before bowing and showing himself back out. "Someday the working class will rise up and you'll be one of the first people up against the wall."

Mei grins, showing the barest slip of fang. "Then I might as well enjoy myself until then, right?" He reaches for the carafe and glasses and pours, filling the air with the warm, metallic scent of blood.

Kazuya would like very much to be able to say that it doesn't rivet his attention, but it would be a lie if he did.

Mei fills one of the glasses nearly to the brim under his avid gaze and splashes a little blood into the other. He hands the first glass to Kazuya, who'll give him an earful about that—later. "Cheers."

Kazuya has enough self-control to raise his glass in reply before drinking—it's still body warm, fresh, heavy and iron on his tongue and in all his senses, more satisfying than the cold, gelid bloodpacks Kazuya uses to meet his dietary needs. He'll take a morning constitutional into the rising sun before he'll admit that to Mei.

Mei, who watches him drain the glass without expression and silently refills it from the remaining blood in the carafe before ever sipping from his own glass. 

Kazuya tries to make the second glass last longer, with only marginal success, and growls at Mei when he's swallowed the last drop. "I guess you think you're sneaky."

"I think that I wish you weren't such a stiff-necked, independent asshole," Mei replies, calm and precise. "For fuck's sake, Kazuya—"

His wrist already feels a thousand times better as his body seizes on the meal and puts it to work. Kazuya stands, eeling out of Mei's grip to do it. "Well, thanks for dinner, but I'd better be on my way."

"Why do you insist on doing everything alone?" Mei asks, not for the first time and probably not for the last, either, if Kazuya knows him. "You know you don't have to—you're my kin—"

"You may want to keep an eye on Kite, I guess," Kazuya continues, cutting across Mei. It's not like he hasn't heard it all before. "I'll let you know if I catch his people trying to pull another fast one over on you."

Mei looks up at him and sighs. "I would appreciate it."

"Yeah, sure. Night, Mei."

"Good night, Kazuya," Mei says, sounding resigned (at least for the moment) as Kazuya sees himself out.

Kazuya would let himself feel bad about that if it were anyone else, but it's Mei—Mei is pretty much impossible to keep down for long. He'll be back to annoying Kazuya about his allegedly poor life choices before the sun comes up again.

Duty discharged and dinner accomplished, Kazuya heads home for the night, resolutely ignoring thoughts of all the luxuries Mei has at his command. He wouldn't know what to do with all that crap if he had it himself, anyway.

 

 

This is how Chris meets Sawamura Eijun: he comes home from an appointment with the latest specialist, this one precisely as useless as the last one, and finds a boy sitting on his front step. He's mid-late teens, if Chris is any judge, with messy brown hair and wide brown eyes, and the less said about the way he looks like he's cosplaying from cheesy science fiction television, the better. He scrambles to his feet as Chris turns in at his sidewalk, and whatever it is the kid is expecting, Chris doesn't seem to be it. He's not the least bit subtle about the way he looks Chris over, taking him in from head to toe and everything in between, and just as quickly dismisses him. 

This does nothing to improve Chris' already foul mood. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, maybe?" The kid eyes him again, doubt clear on his face. "I'm looking for, um…" He glances at a scrap of paper. "Takigawa Chris Yuu?" He looks up again, guileless, and Chris will (begrudgingly) give him this: his eyes barely hesitate over the sling this time. He steps out of the way for Chris when Chris keeps walking, slipping aside as Chris stomps up his steps. "Do you know where I can find him?"

Chris really isn't in the mood for this. "No, I don't. Go away."

The kid, regrettably, doesn't listen. "Do you know where I could find someone who does know?"

"No," Chris says, fumbling the keys out of his pocket, and hears an annoyed huff behind him. "Go away."

"Fine, geez, whatever. I should've known better," the kid says, his eyeroll audible. "Stupid Miyuki."

Chris stops with the keys in the lock and turns around. "What did you say?"

The kid scowls up at him, sulky. "What do you want to know for?" He shakes his head and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Never mind. Sorry for bothering you, old man. My fault for listening to that jerk."

It's been a while since Chris has felt much at all, but now he does, indignation mingling with irritation. Old man? That's pretty rich coming from a kid who isn't even shaving yet. "Who sent you here?"

The kid blinks at him, looking confused, but answers readily enough. "I guess his name is Miyuki. Why?"

That's what he'd thought the kid had said. Chris takes another look at him, a closer look, though the kid hasn't changed since his first evaluation—but now Chris knows Miyuki sent him, and that makes a difference. Chris takes in the sturdy boots and trousers and the vest with all its pockets, all the lumps and bulges that signal the things the kid has stowed about his person, and gets a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. "What did Miyuki send you to me for?" he asks, though he's already sure he knows.

"He says I need training," the kid says. Then it clicks for him and his jaw drops. "Wait, you're Takigawa-san?"

Chris looks down at the kid sputtering on his front walk, hearing the word training echoing inside his skull like a sick joke. Him, train someone? "You'd better come inside," he says, grim, turning back to his door and unlocking it, the cool tingle of his security systems there and gone again as he holds the door for the kid, still sputtering over the fact that Chris hadn't told him who he was right away. But he comes up the steps anyway and steps over Chris' threshold. His sputterings break off as he does; strangers get a far more thorough welcome from his security than Chris does. He shivers, head to foot, and turns a shocked look on Chris. "What was that?"

"My wards," Chris tells him, crowding him out of the entrance so he can close the door. 

"But I'm human!" the kid protests.

He hasn't even known this kid five minutes, but Chris is already starting to see why Miyuki might think he needs training.

"That's nice for you, I guess." Chris kicks off his shoes and steps into his slippers, and after a bit of flabbergasted staring at him, the kid follows his example and then just follows him into the house. 

As Chris makes for the kitchen, weaving his way through the mess of his living room, the kid tries a slightly different tack. "Why would your wards care about humans?"

That’s something more like a sensible question, so Chris gives him an answer. "Three of the most dangerous people I know are fully human. And only one of them has any magic." His refrigerator is pretty bare these days; the only thing he actually has worth offering a guest, however unwelcome, is beer, but there's plenty of that. Chris grabs a couple of cans and hands one to the kid on his way back to the living room.

The kid goggles and immediately tries to hide that he's goggling. Chris thought so. He drops himself into his easy chair and puts his feet up, cracks his own beer open, and waits to see what the kid does next.

There's crap all over the living room, books and magazines scattered around, and the other chair has a box of junk in it. The kid hesitates and then moves the box off the chair and sits. He pops his beer open without checking the seal, either trusting that it's intact or not knowing any better than to take food and drink from a stranger without checking it first, and gamely swallows his first sip even when it's clearly not what he was expecting it to be.

Chris puts another checkmark next to completely inexperienced in the profile he's building in his head and takes a long drink. "So. Who are you, and why did Miyuki send you to my doorstep?"

"I'm Sawamura Eijun," the kid says, putting his beer aside and straightening up. "That jerk said I needed more training and said you were the one who could give it to me." Sawamura's as transparent as glass; there's no missing the way his eyes drop to the sling resting against Chris' chest again. He looks away hastily and fixes his gaze on Chris' face firmly. "Who are you, anyway?"

Chris takes another drink of his beer, a nice long one, and swallows his bitterness down along with it. "These days? No one in particular. How did you even meet Miyuki?"

"Um." Chris squints, but no, Sawamura is definitely turning red. "Well. I sort of… accidentally stuck a stake in him?"

That's enough to give Chris a moment's pause, not quite sure he could have possibly heard that correctly. Sawamura seems to be perfectly serious, however, and that only sparks more questions. "How do you accidentally stick a stake in someone?"

Sawamura fidgets beneath Chris' regard, looking anywhere but at Chris as he says, "I was out on patrol—" He says it without the least trace of irony, and a part of Chris wants to wince. "—and I saw this vampire pull someone into an alley and try to eat him, so of course I had to do something about it, right?" Sawamura screws his face up in a puzzled grimace. "Only I guess the guy wanted to be eaten or something, and anyway, he wasn't human either. Both of them were pretty mad about being interrupted, I guess."

"Wait," Chris says slowly, reconstructing the encounter based on Sawamura's description. He doesn't much like the picture he's building. "What made you think Miyuki was assaulting his companion?"

Sawamura blinks at him. "Uh, he bit him? And was drinking his blood?"

"Yes, and what else?" Chris counters. Sawamura gives him a blank look and Chris sighs. "What else made you believe this was not a consensual encounter?"

"He was drinking the guy's blood! No one lets that happen consensually!" Sawamura protests.

That's so far from being true that Chris doesn't even know where to begin. He has another drink of his beer while he thinks it over. Get the rest of the story first, he decides, and then explain due process and probable cause as they pertain to the supernatural and metahuman communities. "Was this when Miyuki decided to send you to me?" 

"Huh? Oh, no, that was later, the second time I met him." Sawamura stops there without elaborating.

Chris draws a breath and lets it out again slowly. This is a sloppy way to work, even if he's not on duty, and Sawamura probably wouldn't recognize a systematic approach if it slapped him in the face. "Let's start from the beginning," he says, his fingers itching for a notebook and pen for notes. "You said you were out on patrol. Where was this? And when?"

Sawamura screws up his face again, thinking, and does a little counting on his fingers. "I guess it was about a week ago, Saturday night, downtown."

"Downtown," Chris repeats. "Where downtown?"

Sawamura shrugs. "I dunno, I'm new to the area. Where the monsters live." He cocks his head when Chris' eyebrows jerk up involuntarily. "What?"

"You said you're new to town." Chris has had a lot of practice in keeping a neutral tone during interrogations. The trick comes back to him readily. "How new?"

"I got here Friday." Sawamura peers at him. "Seriously, what is it?"

In town only a week, with an accent that screams a rural upbringing. Chris decides to be generous and give him a hint. "The word monster has a lot of baggage. You should be careful how you use it."

Sawamura ponders that, puzzling it over. "Huh. He got really upset when I called him a monster, too."

"You called Miyuki a monster to his face and lived to tell about it," Chris says, not exactly wanting to believe what he's hearing but dreadfully certain Sawamura is too guileless, or perhaps naïve, to realize the grossness of the insult. Sawamura just shrugs, so Chris rubs his forehead. "Sawamura, if you called him a monster to his face, we'd have a really hard time prosecuting him for trying to rip your head off your shoulders, because most people would consider that extreme provocation." When Sawamura gives him a confused look, Chris tries a different way to explain it. "It would be like dressing yourself in a suit made of raw steak and jumping into a pit of hungry tigers. Most people would say you had whatever happened after that coming to you."

"But—vampire?" Sawamura says. "Drinks blood to live? Kills people?"

He does not appear to be joking. Chris gives it a minute, just in case, but Sawamura doesn't try to walk that one back. "Just what made you think Miyuki goes around killing people?" It's been—well, a while—but that would be a pretty radical change from the guy Chris recalls knowing.

"Uh, I saw him do it?"

Again, Sawamura doesn't appear to be joking.

"You saw him commit murder," Chris repeats. That doesn't even make sense, there's no way Miyuki would send someone who'd witnessed him committing a crime to him, of all people. "And so you tried to stake him yourself instead of calling the police?"

"Huh? Oh, no, that was the first time we met. It was the second time, when we killed a vampire together." Sawamura looks very pleased with the memory, but then his smile dims. "He killed the other two himself."

The beginnings of a headache throb behind Chris' eyeballs. "Okay, you know what, let's start over. Tell me what happened from the beginning—from your first… patrol."

Sawamura gives him a somewhat puzzled look, but humors his request. "So I went downtown on patrol and saw that guy Miyuki pull another guy into an alley, so I checked it out and saw him trying to eat the other guy. So I tried to stake him, but that's a lot harder to do than it looks. He, um, turned on me, I guess, knocked me into the wall until I kneed him in the balls—" It's an outright miracle that Sawamura is still alive, Chris decides. "—and then he knocked me into the garbage and bitched me out." Sawamura makes a face. "I guess neither of them were human, but I mean—it's weird to let a vampire turn you into dinner, right?"

"It depends," Chris tells him after a moment's sheer disbelief.

"On what?"

"…never mind that for now." Chris clears his throat and takes a drink; there's a good reason he's always let other people explain the supernatural facts of life to the rookies, and that much certainly hasn't changed. "So Miyuki… bitched you out. Then what happened?"

"He and his buddy took off, right up the side of the building." Sawamura shrugs. "So the next night I went patrolling somewhere else." He makes a face. "I actually didn't find anything most nights, which I thought was a little weird. I thought there would be more monsters. There always are on television."

"I can't imagine why that would be," Chris says, at a loss for anything better when the kid is so honestly puzzled. He has to realize that what he sees on television isn't real… doesn't he?

"Yeah, I dunno." Sawamura brightens. "But I did meet a vampire the other night, and I totally dusted him when he attacked me, so the week wasn't a total loss."

Chris sits up straight at that, less for Sawamura's casual bloodthirstiness than for the feat he's claiming. "You killed a vampire on your own?"

Sawamura scowls at him. "Well, yeah. You don't have to sound so surprised about it."

Chris' suspicion that Miyuki might be playing an elaborate practical joke on him takes a solid blow in the face of Sawamura's offended glare. Sawamura clearly doesn't see anything remarkable in being able to kill a vampire on his own as a rank amateur, seems to be taking his cues from overly melodramatic television, which means there must be more to him than it looks. "I'd like to know what happened, if you don't mind. Please."

Sawamura gives him a suspicious look and then relents. "Well, I was on patrol in a different part of town, lots of bars and pachinko parlors and… other stuff." He clears his throat, a little pink. He's clearly young and obviously innocent, so he's probably talking about the Wotsit district, where the "other stuff" comprises brothels and love hotels, plus more exotic entertainments. It's also not a safe area for the human who doesn't know what he's doing, especially after dark. "There was, um. A lady who asked me if I was looking for something fun, which seemed pretty sketchy to me, so of course I said yes. She sent me inside the, uh, establishment she was working for, and they offered me a drink and dinner, then sent me into one of the back rooms with a couple of… um, ladies, I'm not sure what they actually were, they weren't vampires but they definitely weren't human either, and then while I was distracted, a vampire came in and tried to eat me. So I killed him and got out of there through the back."

The crazy thing—crazier than the events Sawamura is describing so casually, like he's ripping off every terrible movie he's ever seen—is how utterly unremarkable he seems to find it all. Like it's perfectly normal for a raw amateur to wander into a honeypot and escape again so easily. "Then what happened?" Chris asks.

"I went home for the night, and I figured I'd try a different part of town the next night." Sawamura frowns. "I'm really not sure how those three vampires found me so fast, but I guess they were upset about their buddy." He shrugs. "Then Miyuki showed up out of nowhere and got involved—he was saying something about a Narumiya and a Kite and about them being in the wrong neighborhood? And how he couldn't let them kill me in the wrong place? Can you believe that? What a jerk. And he killed two of the vampires, then held the third one so I could stake him. He gave me your name and address after than and ran off again."

Sawamura clearly has no idea who Narumiya or Kite is, or why it would matter if a human had turned up dead in Narumiya's territory instead of Kite's. Now it's very clear why Miyuki's sent Sawamura his way, and it's even clearer that Chris is going to have to do something about this whole messy situation. 

Shit.

Chris drinks some more of his beer, buying himself some time to think. Miyuki's motivations are, as ever, his own, inscrutable and obscure, but even he isn't likely to want such a loose cannon roaming his neighborhood and causing trouble. Chris doesn't want that either, so as much as he'd like to wash his hands—hah, hands—as much as he'd like that, it's out of the question. 

Sawamura fidgets, broadcasting impatience with every restless movement of his body and the way his gaze roams around Chris' living room. It would be an interesting exercise to find out what Sawamura makes of what he sees—Chris forecloses that line of thought and focuses on the immediate. "How old are you, anyway?"

Sawamura scowls at him. "I'm almost eighteen."

Of course. "Still in high school?"

Sawamura twitches at that and doesn't meet his eyes. "Nope."

"Have you actually graduated?" Chris asks, purely as a formality, and Sawamura squirms. "That's what I thought. What does your family think of that?"

Sawamura pulls himself up straight, puffing out his chest, indignant. "They say a man has to follow his own road in pursuit of his dreams!"

Chris stares at him, mostly in disbelief, and catches the faintly guilty way Sawamura's eyes skate away from his. "Okay, but does that mean they know where you are right now?"

"…I left them a note," Sawamura mutters.

Chris drains the rest of his beer and changes his mind: Miyuki is playing an elaborate joke on him after all, just not quite the kind he'd initially thought it was. He sets the can down, repressing a sigh, and says, "All right, fine. You need training—" So much training. "—and that is something I can arrange. You have some place you're staying?" Sawamura nods and starts to open his mouth, but Chris doesn't let him say whatever it is he's about to say. "We'll go get your stuff later, after I've made some calls." It's tempting—so very tempting—to tell the kid to go get his stuff all on his own, but it would also be criminally irresponsible now that he knows that Sawamura has killed or helped kill four of Kite's people.

Sawamura looks at him. "What? Why?"

"Because," Chris says, contemplating the grim prospect, "You're going to stay with me while I'm training you."

He's not at all surprised that Sawamura reacts loudly and angrily to that, though he really wishes he could be. It doesn't matter; Chris is very good at being stubborn when he needs to be, and this is an argument that Sawamura can't afford to win, whether he knows it or not.

 

 

Kazuya isn't usually a sound sleeper, but he gets the feeling that his phone has been ringing for a while by the time the shrill buzz penetrates enough to rouse him. Well, it was a busy night. He's entitled to sleep it off. He gropes for his phone and stabs at the screen to stop the ringing, and he's answering before his day-fogged brain has registered the name on the caller ID. That's why the first thing he says to Chris in close to six months is, "This had better be good, or I swear I will find you and rip your throat out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *waves hand* There were going to be vampire politics and worldbuilding about how humans and magical creatures managed to live side-by-side amicably (or not) and I was aiming at some ChrisMiyu fangsex, but I ran out of steam. Alas.


	3. Voltron: Legendary Defender - The Castaways (Keith, Lance)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Keith and Lance are marooned together after season one and learn how to appreciate one another.

It's somewhere around the point just before Shiro and Black swoop in to whisk Red out of harm's way like a cat with a wayward kitten that Keith starts to think that it's just barely possible that Coran was right when he'd said Zarkon was too strong for him to take on.

Of course, it's a little late at that point.

Red's a mess—she wants to respond, wants to keep fighting, but she's taken a lot of damage. Their responses are slowed, far less crisp than they'd need to be if they were fighting normal Galra.

Whatever the hell Zarkon is, he's not normal.

There's nothing he can do about it now, so Keith sets his teeth along with Red and prepares to go out with as much of a bang as possible. (They both agree that Zarkon cannot be allowed to take Red—Keith can feel her fierce rage at the very idea; it tastes like iron in his mouth, feels like a band constricting his chest.) Keith is trying to get Red to tell him whether her particle barrier will hold or if they're going to have to think about other options when Shiro and Black make the question moot.

Sort of moot.

They're still stuck inside the Galra solar barrier with a _lot_ of Galra ships. 

And then they're not. Keith doesn't know why the barrier drops, but it does, and none of them have been so glad to see a wormhole since the day Allura had almost steered the castle-ship into a star going nova. 

It's just starting to look like they're going to squeak through this after all when the wormhole goes haywire. Keith hears the yelling over the comms about it destabilizing, right before he and Red crash through the wormhole. 

After that he loses track of things a little. 

He's never tried to wrap his head around the physics of the Altean wormholes—he's a pilot, not an engineer—but he knows that the forces involved are incredible, and so it's not a shock that breaking through the barrier between hyperspace and regular space throws him and Red around like a leaf in a raging river. Red is a scream inside his skull as she strains to hold herself together when physics is determined to tear them both apart. 

Keith may scream, too, he doesn't know—he's tumbling around inside the cockpit the way Red is tumbling through hyperspace—and it hurts. Everything _hurts_.

They drop into normal space with the clamor of alarms racketing through the cockpit; the screaming inside his skull tapers off somewhat as the forces that were straining Red so badly fall away. 

They've made it through that much, anyway, and Red's relief is something nearly palpable.

They've made it through, and she's going to need repairs, but she'll be fine. 

Keith wishes he could say the same for himself. He lies on the floor of the cockpit and curls onto his side, the one that didn't bang against the console during all the tumbling and therefore doesn't ache as badly as the other one does. When he breathes, his ribs creak and ache fiercely, but it's a dull ache—bruises for sure, maybe a couple of cracks but not broken, he thinks. He hopes.

There's a much sharper pain above his elbow, another in the region of his upper thigh, both places that his armor doesn't fully protect. 

Red nudges at him for attention, like she's asking a question, and Keith tries to sit up. 

It doesn't go very well. "Sorry," he tells her; his voice is raspy and his throat is raw. "I don't think I can do much for you right now." They make a hell of a pair like this.

Red nudges at him again; he feels reassurance/determination/comfort in the touch, as if Red is promising him that she'll take care of things. 

Keith may have to hold her to that.

In the meantime, he grits his teeth and tries sitting up again. His ribs ache fiercely; the movement makes his injured arm and leg shriek, two white-hot balls of fire. 

It's been a while since the last time Keith broke a bone, but he's pretty sure that streak's been broken now.

Hah. Broken. 

"Great," he says out loud, panting from the effort of not screaming. "I'm going into shock."

He manages to sit up, but the effort it takes leaves him shaking and soaked with sweat. The distance between his spot on the floor and the pilot's chair might as well be a mile.

Keith leans his head back against the wall. "Red? Can you patch the comms through to my helmet? Please?" He doesn't even know whether that's a thing she can do, or will do if she can. Allura hadn't been lying when she'd said that the Red Lion was temperamental.

There's a moment when what he gets out of their connection is a sort of consideration. Then the comm channel in his helmet comes to life—though the only way Keith can tell is that the silence of the open channel is different from the silence of the closed one. Emptier. 

Keith pats the wall anyway. "Thanks."

He gets back a feeling like a purr.

Keith takes a breath and toggles his comms on. "Is there anyone out there who can hear me?" he tries. "Hello? Anyone?"

There's nothing but silence in reply, even when he tries hailing the others by name, and that—that's not good. That's not good at all.

He toggles the comms off and the silence looms large. He sucks in a breath that's too deep for his injured ribs; the resulting ache is good. It pushes away the unreasonable fear Keith can feel hovering at the edges of his brain. 

Silence is nothing to be afraid of; he's lived with silence, is intimate with it. Even if he's lost the trick of being alone, he'll pick it up again easily enough. He always has before. 

(He's never been lost and alone in space before, but Keith does his best not to think about that.)

"What are we gonna do?" he asks Red, more to keep all that silence at bay than because he thinks she'll have an answer for him.

Red hums reassurance back at him and doesn't seem offended by his answering skepticism.

 

 

Time passes. 

Keith tries the comms whenever it occurs to him and gets only silence in reply. Red is moving through space, not at the speed that's hers by right, but at an injured limping pace. Even if they knew where they were, it's going to take them forever to get anywhere at all. Space is so _big_. 

Keith knows his history, knows how incredible an achievement for humanity it was when they managed to compress journeys within their own solar system to a matter of months instead of years. He doesn't know if Red is moving even that fast now. 

It's hard to bring himself to care over the twin stars of pain that are the broken bones. He needs to do something about those, but about the best he can manage is to cradle his bad arm with his good one and try not to move too much. And to keep trying the comms.

He may sleep, though that seems like it ought to be impossible—but the human body can only take so much before it surrenders. 

If it is sleep, it's uneasy and unproductive, and Keith doesn't feel any better for it during his lucid periods. 

Time passes. 

Red has a chronometer, but it's Altean. When Keith asks her to tell him how much time it's been since their attempt to rescue Allura, she obliges him… but the display doesn't mean much, because it's in Altean. 

So that's not very useful—Keith watches the chronometer display, the steady blink of the ticks rolling over, and for the lack of anything better to do, he teaches himself to tell time the Altean way. (A tick is roughly the same as a second, but the next larger unit—Keith dubs it a tock—isn't quite twice a minute. The Alteans tell time in base ten. Told time in base ten. Whatever.)

He's never cared much for the math that goes into flying, has never really needed to except to satisfy the Garrison sticklers—flying is something that makes sense in his very bones, something that comes as naturally to him as breathing does. Pidge and Hunk probably would have worked it out in a matter of minutes, but Keith doesn't have their brains or instincts. It takes him considerably longer to be sure that he's worked it out, longer still to be sure he's making the conversions between Altean and Earth time correctly, but eventually he comes to the conclusion that it's been around twenty-four hours since they fired up the wormhole to make the jump to Zarkon's command central. 

"Shit," Keith says out loud.

If it's been that long and he only has the vague urge to relieve himself—well. He'd shed a lot of sweat while fighting Zarkon. (Getting his ass handed to him by Zarkon.)

Red nudges at him; she doesn't miss much even if she doesn't really care about many things—at least, that's the sense Keith gets from her, that she only gives her attention to the things that have earned it. And she may be a magic psychic robot lion, but she knows enough to know that the squishy biological types have needs. 

Which is why she nudges at him until he looks where she wants him to—one of the panels towards the rear of the cockpit. Keith can feel her prodding at him, insistent, wanting him to get into whatever is behind that panel. 

Keith eyes the distance between it and him. "You've got to be kidding me."

Red is not kidding; her nudges become something more like _pushes_ , demands. He _has_ to get into that locker, according to Red, and his injuries be damned.

Keith doesn't like to give in on anything, which is something he's been praised and scolded for all his life, but Red doesn't let up. He _has_ to get over there, he just has to—

He can't really afford the tears that leak out of him during the nightmare of dragging himself across the cockpit, doesn't need to let himself get any more dehydrated than he is, but Red shows him no mercy. He finds out why when he finally reaches the panel and it swings open. There's something like an Altean survival kit behind the panel, and the survival kit includes water—five bottles of it, maybe a liter each. 

"Oh," Keith says, too exhausted by the ordeal of getting across two meters of cockpit to feel more than dull gratitude. "Thanks."

Red nudges at him until he cracks one of the bottles open—he has to pin it against the wall with his good leg to do it—and the first taste of the water shreds any sort of restraint he has. He downs it in desperate, greedy gulps, until his stomach practically sloshes, too full, and the bottle is empty. 

Red purrs to him. 

"Thanks," Keith tells her again, exhausted, and lets himself pass out for a while.

 

 

The locker has what Keith can only assume are the Altean equivalents of ration bars, which. They're probably not the worst things Keith has ever choked down. Probably. If he can't think of anything worse, it's because he's in a lot of pain and has a long history with institutional food. 

He chokes one down out of sheer stubbornness, alternating bites with sips of water, and tries not to think about sanitation. If he's lucky, he'll reach the castle-ship before it comes to that. (When in his life has he ever been lucky?)

The comms stay silent. 

There's something like a first aid kit in the locker, though Keith can't make much of it. God only knows what the pills are or how they'd affect him. He doesn't need the Altean version of band-aids, either, but there are a couple of rolls of something not completely unlike Earth-style bandages. The effort of fashioning these into a sling involves his teeth and a lot of really painful contortions, but it's not like he has anything better to do.

He doesn't like the way it leaves him shaking and exhausted, either, but there's not helping that.

He tries the comms again—"Is there anyone out there?"—and gets nothing.

Okay.

Keith leans his head back and reaches out to Red. "What are we doing? Do you know where we are?"

He's not expecting a star map to appear on his visor, but it does, a scattering of glowing dots with labels in Altean print. Keith is competent with math, but there's no way in hell he's going to figure _those_ out. 

He's more worried about the one dot that's red to the blue of the others. "Is that us?" He's really hoping Red isn't going to confirm that, but—"Oh, fuck."

They're in interstellar space. 

The sudden sharp ache of his ribs clues Keith in that he's breathing too fast, on the verge of hyperventilating, but how can he not be when he's in a badly damaged Lion, lost somewhere in the vastness of space—

Red's presence closes around him, firm and no-nonsense. He's seen nature documentaries (not willingly, for the most part) and it feels kind of like that footage of a lioness getting tired of one of her cub's frantic activity and pinning it down with one massive paw. Red's presence falls over his frantic brain and stills it; he can practically hear her say _Be calm_. 

The display on his visor changes, zooms in. The red dot is moving; Red helpfully shows him a dotted line stretching between it and a star. When she's satisfied he understands, the display zooms in on one of the planets orbiting the star. There's another dotted line stretching to one of those planets. 

Well, that's clear enough. "How long until we get there?" Keith croaks. 

The numbers flash onto his visor and he forces himself to convert the ticks and tocks into Earth time—" _Eight days_?" They're moving faster than any earth vessel could, but he's got maybe three and a half liters of water left, seven ration bars, and at least two broken bones. And there's no telling what's in that system—Galra? Nothing? Something worse?

He can feel Red's exasperation through his panic, distantly, right before she reaches into his brain and puts him to sleep.

It might be one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for him.

 

 

Okay. 

Okay, here are his resources: around 3.5 liters of water (the human body needs at least a liter of water a day, minimum). Seven ration bars of unknown nutritional value (as far as they can tell, Altean and human nutritional needs coincide fairly well, so these will probably keep him going for—a while). An array of unidentifiable pills. One very damaged Lion. One damaged human pilot. One knife.

Red insists that the planet she's aiming for is a good choice; Keith guess that he's going to have to hope that a) she's right; b) it's not overrun with Galra; and c) there will be potable water that he can drag himself to once they get there.

If any of those conditions fail to be true, he's fucked. Simple logic.

He's never been a fan of logic.

He figures out how much of the water he can allow himself per day, with a day's ration left over for a margin of error. He divides the ration bars up, figuring he can make those stretch out longer than he's supposed to. A human body can go a long time without food, though he doesn't imagine it's going to be any fun.

He uses the chronometer to time his attempts to contact the others. 

When it becomes necessary, he copes with the sanitation thing and apologizes to Red, who doesn't see the point—well, robot cat. She wouldn't.

And when he can't stand the silence and the waiting or the panic that threatens to overwhelm him again, he begs Red to put him under again, and she does.

And time passes.

 

 

Red prods Keith out of an uneasy doze when they enter the solar system; he's not sure whether she's reflecting his anxiety back to him or if she's worried about him, but the touch feels worried.

Keith tries the comms on reflex, toggling the channel open to ask if there's anyone else out there, anyone at all, and when that's as useless as it's been all along, he addresses Red. "How's it looking?"

Red throws the long-range scanners up on his visor; she feels—pleased is the best way he can describe it. It takes more effort than it should to parse out the scans, and even so most of it is Altean gibberish (they should have spent time learning some Altean; why hadn't they thought of that when they'd had the chance?). But there's one thing missing from the results, and that's the Altean gibberish that stands for _Galra_. 

"No Galra in this system?" Keith says, hardly daring to believe it. "Are you sure?"

Red's offense feels practically playful.

Keith lets his head thunk against the wall; if the sound he makes then is more of a sob than a laugh, well, Red won't tell anyone his secrets. 

Red's course is set for the third planet in the system, and as they hobble closer, Keith treats himself to the last of the day's water ration and part of a ration bar. (He's heard that hunger is the best sauce, and God knows he's never been this hungry, but the ration bar is still beyond foul.)

Red keeps scanning the system, double-checking that there are no Galra, but as they come closer to their goal she starts a scan of the planet, too. The text still means nothing to Keith, but Red loops the planet once, twice, and there are pictures to be had from that. There are two major landmasses and several island chains. The weather looks sort of like Earth's, from what Keith can see. There aren't any satellites, and no signs of any kind of civilization that Keith can detect. 

But that might be because there isn't a civilization _or_ because Keith isn't an anthropologist—exopologist?—by any stretch of the imagination.

Red purrs to him, inquisitive. 

Keith lets out a breath "Yeah," he tells her. "Let's set down."

Entering the atmosphere is rough. Not as rough as getting through out of hyperspace was, but Keith doesn't think anything could be rougher than that—not anything he or Red could survive. But it's rough; Red shakes and rattles and even though he does his best to brace himself, Keith ends up getting jostled enough that he can't help the sounds he makes when he slides across the cockpit floor and jars his injured leg. 

That can't be good, he thinks distantly as Red's flight evens out, the transition from vacuum to atmosphere made. Red hums at him, apologetic, and Keith pats the deck with his good hand. It's not her fault; she's done her best for him this whole time.

She chooses where they sit down, and does it so carefully that Keith can barely feel the tiny shiver as her paws touch the ground. He does feel the moment she starts powering some of her systems down, feels it as a sudden lessening of the ever-present hum in the deck beneath him.

He lies where he is on the deck, planning his next move. He's going to have to leave Red, and once he does he's not going to be able to come back, not in his present condition. Everything he wants to take, he's going to have to take with him.

"Right," he says, working on nerving himself for the coming ordeal. "No time like the present, is there?"

At least he had the foresight to keep everything stowed in the locker; he's the only thing that went sliding around during their entry. Once he toils his way back to the locker—Jesus _fuck_ , he hurts, and he doesn't like how he has to stop and rest once he gets there. He's burning through his reserves too quickly. 

He takes everything, the empty bottles and the ones that aren't, the balance of the first aid kit and the ration bars, and the waste he hopes to bury decently as soon as he can. Everything gets bundled into the thing that might be an Altean emergency blanket, tied as well as he can manage with only one good hand, and then there's only one thing left to do.

Red shifts minutely, and a moment later Keith catches a breath of moist air that's full of unfamiliar-but-not scents—vegetation, soil, and who knows what else. 

Keith takes the deepest breath his ribs will let him, sets his jaw, and begins the job of crawling down the short corridor from Red's cockpit to the jaw hatch.

It's a nightmare.

Keith doesn't know how long it takes him to travel the short distance—relatively short distance. He has to stop frequently to rest and recover from the agony of moving his broken body, and he's pretty sure the time it takes him to force himself to start moving again runs longer and longer each time.

He lets himself sprawl out when he reaches the turn that leads to the hatch, down and out. He's pretty sure they set down in daylight, but there's nothing but darkness beyond the opening of Red's hatch. 

Even he's not foolhardy enough to tackle an unknown planet injured and in the dark. 

Keith chokes down another portion of ration bar and collapses into an exhausted sleep, trusting Red to stand watch.

Daylight wakes him, not quite the _right_ spectrum, but close enough that he suffers more than a moment of disorientation while trying to figure out where he is and why he's sleeping on the floor. (It takes longer than he knows it should to figure out _where_ and _what_ and _how_.) Which leaves him facing Red's short ramp down to something shockingly green after all this time in space and Red's cockpit.

Keith contemplates that gentle slope grimly and lets his bundle slide down. There's enough incline that it goes easily. How the hell is he going to do this without hurting himself any more than he already is?

As it turns out, neither very well nor with any particular dignity. He angles his good site at his goal and tries to make a controlled descent. He ends up in a heap at the bottom of the ramp, vision whiting out from pain. Or maybe he blacks out for a bit. It's hard to say. 

Whichever it is, it takes him a while to recover enough to notice anything outside his own skin. 

The first thing he registers is the sky, a clear summer blue full of scattered clouds, the kind of sky he hasn't seen since before leaving Earth. It's not such a bad thing to look at, he thinks, as these things go.

When he thinks he's ready to find out if this is going to work or not, he levers himself up, a slow and excruciating process, to take his first good look at the alien terrain. 

It's a meadow, or what would probably be called a meadow on Earth. It's covered in vegetation that looks a lot like grass, certainly grows tall like grass. There's taller vegetation within eyeshot, something in a darker green that could be bushes or low trees, and it's all very scenic. There might even be birds singing. 

Keith contemplates all this scenery before reaching out to Red. "Can you tell where the closest water is?"

Red can and does; a display pops up on his visor. The red dot must be them, and Red has set down as close to the water as she can get. Keith squints at the display, trying to get his bearings. It looks like the water is—that way, where the larger plants crop up. That's not dissimilar from what he'd expect in an Earth environment. 

It's still a distance of maybe ten meters through the grass and into the trees. Keith eyes that distance, filled with misgivings. "I don't suppose we can get any closer?"

Red's reply is slow in coming, tinged with embarrassment—Keith feels his jaw drop, but it's justified. "You _can't_?"

He gets a flash of impressions, Zarkon, the wormhole breaking up around them, the roughness of their descent into the atmosphere, and a glimpse of Red's hangar in the castle-ship and all the resources she has at her disposal there. 

"Fuck," Keith says softly, laying his hand on her ramp. "Fuck, I knew it was bad, but I didn't know it was _that_ bad."

That, he is given to understand, is because Red hadn't wanted him to know. Something about protecting him from further upset. 

Keith lets out a breath. "Well. Aren't we a pair?"

Red answers him with a ripple of amusement, but doesn't disagree. 

If this is as good as it's going to get, then it's as good as it's going to get. Keith tries the comms again, just in case, and once he's verified that he's still on his own, he takes a look at his bundle of sadly limited supplies and does what he can to fashion another roll of bandages into a crude harness that well let him drag it along behind him. Then he sets his teeth and gets started. 

Getting off the ramp and into the grass—whatever it is, it's close enough to grass that that's what he's going to call it—is the easy part. Relatively easy part. 

The grass is thick, and even though it looks like it should be soft, it's not. It's a dense tangle of old growth and new, dead stalks that poke his face and green blades that are shockingly sharp. And it's not just grass; there are other things growing in the tangle, vine-like things covered in fine stickers and small, woody plants. There are bugs, too, clouds of infinitesimal creatures that swarm up whenever he moves. Keith would hope that they don't sting if he could be bothered to care, but the fact is that it was a lot easier to haul himself across the smooth surfaces of Red's deck than he realized at the time.

He has to fight through the grass, literally fight, while the plants fight back, snagging at his bundle of supplies and the exposed half of his face. He's exhausted by the effort it takes him to crawl a couple of meters from Red, nauseated by how much he hurts, and stops to rest.

Only the thought that there's water to be had at the end of this misery can induce him to move again, because he's down to the last little bit of water from the emergency supply kit. 

He spends all day toiling through the grass—has to stop to rest more and more often, for longer and longer stretches, as the planet's sun crosses the sky and the air turns warmer. He can't afford the water he's losing to sweat and can't afford to stop, so he does his best not to think at all, just focuses on the task at hand to the exclusion of anything else.

When he reaches the place where the grass thins, the meadow giving way to trees, the sun is riding low in the sky and painting everything gold, and Keith is trembling with exhaustion.

And the thicket in front of him is impenetrable. 

He can't bring himself to comprehend this right away, staring at the densely interwoven branches and knobbly roots, the vining plants woven all through the branches without understanding for long minutes. He even stretches out a hand to push at the branches; they resist with all the resilience of rubber.

There's no way he's going to get through that mess, not when he's already debilitated by thirst and hunger and injury. 

He tries anyway, pulls his knife to saw at some of the interlaced branches and vines. The vines resist a little, but the woodier branches of the bushes resist a _lot_. He hacks away at them until he's breathless and trembling, and only stops when he nearly loses his grip on the knife altogether. 

And all he has to show for it is a few dangling vines and a couple of scarred branches.

That's when he knows.

Keith slumps into the grass, brain gone dull and slow, and all he can muster is a sort of grim resignation to the fact that this is how he's going to die: alone on an alien planet, probably of thirst, and only a few meters from water. "Fuck," he says, slow and helpless. "Well, _fuck_."

Red must be paying attention; she nudges him, worried—did she choose the wrong place to set down? It had seemed like a good place with water and cover, nothing insurmountable.

He laughs because there's nothing else he can do—his Lion humbles him with her faith in him, skewed as it is by her own ideas about what's surmountable. (What isn't surmountable for a magic psychic robot lion?) "You did fine," he tells her. "Just fine. We'd be fine if I were in better shape."

But he's not, and that's all there really is to it. "Make sure your next paladin treats you right, okay?"

Red recoils from that—Keith gets shock and anger off their connection before she cuts him off, which, great. He hadn't meant to offend her. "Sorry," he says, but Red doesn't reply.

Keith sighs and digs into his pack of supplies. Maybe he'll treat himself to a whole ration bar, now that there's no point in parceling them out any more.

 

 

Lance is just finishing his sweep of yet another solar system that's free of Alteans or misplaced paladins, not to mention Galra, and bored out of his skull as he wishes like hell the universe weren't quite so big and empty, when he feels Blue shudder.

He's sitting up straighter and sweeping his eyes over the console, searching for some kind of alert or sign, when the controls move under his hands—Blue is moving herself and isn't consulting him on this at all. As he watches, she turns away from the empty star system and points her nose in a new direction, one opposite of the way they've been exploring in their fruitless search for a friendly face. 

Then she takes off and _holy shit_ , this is the fastest they have ever moved. That includes all the times in the past week they've had to outrun Galra capital ships and starfighters. 

But there aren't any Galra on any of his scanners as they head into the vastness of interstellar space.

Lance sits up even straighter, heart beating faster. "Did you get something?"

In return he gets a sweep of emotion, desperation and fear and an urgent cry for help that knocks him back into his seat, leaves him gasping with the rawness of it, fucking _fuck_ , this can't be good. 

"Who is it?" he asks, afraid of the answer, because he doesn't want Blue to be that afraid for any of the team—

He tastes fire and fury and sheer determination, and oh. It's Red, and Keith—he can't tell which Blue is so worried about—but whatever is going on, it's not good. 

Lance curves his hands over Blue's controls, not to hinder her but to feel how she's moving. "Okay," he says. "Let's go pull their asses out of the fire, then."

It might be his imagination, but he thinks Blue manages to lay on a little more speed for him for that.

 

 

When the comm line crackles into life, he almost misses it—takes it as a figment of his imagination at first, in fact, because he's gotten so used to the silence. Red has to nudge him before Keith recognizes the faint noises coming from his helmet lying on the grass where he'd dropped it after his last attempt at reaching out to any of the others. He fumbles it on, sluggish and clumsy, in time to hear Lance break into a string of curses. "—God fucking damn it, you son of a bitch, will you fucking answer me, you arrogant piece of shit, you'd better not fucking be dead or so help me I'll raise you from the dead and fucking kill you myself, fucking fuck, c'mon, Keith, you shithead, pick up your goddamn comm." Or something like that; Lance might actually be using the word _fuck_ like a bizarre form of punctuation. 

Keith has to close his eyes when he decides that he's really hearing Lance and not imagining that he does. (It happens when Lance runs out of English and switches to Spanish, because Keith only has a few fragments of Spanish himself, enough to recognize the word _pendejo_ anyway, but certainly not enough to hallucinate the torrent of profanity pouring out of Lance's mouth. Holy fuck, maybe this isn't how he's going to die after all.)

When he's mastered himself enough, Keith licks his lips and takes a breath. "Hey. You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

There's a beat of silence on Lance's end of the comm line; Keith waits for him to react, wondering what kind of smart-ass retort he's going to come up with. There's an explosion of breath and a quiet mutter from Lance—taking the Lord's name in vain? Maybe? Keith doesn't know what Lance has just said or if it even matters. Then Lance clears his throat and switches back to English. "The hell, man, you sound awful."

Aw, fuck, laughing hurts, but it doesn't stop him. "I've had better days," Keith admits when he can, once the first rush of giddy relief is threatening to turn into something else, something he has way too much pride to let Lance hear. "Where are you?"

"No clue," Lance reports cheerfully. "Blue says we're not too much farther from you guys, though. Maybe half an hour?"

"Yeah?" Keith leans his head back against Red's leg. 

"Yeah, as best as I can tell. We were poking around a few systems over when she made a u-turn you wouldn't believe and took off. I guess she got some kind of distress call off Red…?"

Ah. So that was what Red had been doing. Keith pats her with his good hand. "Good kitty."

Lance hoots with laughter, loud over the comm, obnoxiously familiar and comforting for it. "Did you just tell Red she's a good kitty?"

"Shut up," Keith tells him for lack of any better retort.

"Not a chance, dude, I'm never going to let you hear the end of this," Lance assures him. "And you know Pidge won't, either."

It may be Keith's imagination or interference on the line, or maybe Lance's breath really does hitch after that. He carries on like normal after a second, so it was probably just Keith's imagination. "Hunk's nice, though, he won't give you too much hell, and of course Shiro's way too nice."

Keith permits himself a snort. "Man, you don't know Shiro very well at all, do you? He'll be worse than you and Pidge put together." Or would have been before Kerberos. These days, not even Keith knows how Shiro will take something. Shiro probably doesn't either, though that's hardly a comfort when Keith lets himself dwell on all the things the Galra have fucked up. 

"What, really?" Lance sounds way too delighted by this for Keith's piece of mind. Too late to backtrack now, unfortunately. "This is gonna be _great_."

"If we ever see them again, sure."

He regrets it the instant it comes out of his mouth, since they've both been avoiding that part of things. He hears another of those bobbles in the comm line (or just the way Lance is breathing) before Lance says, "Way to be a buzzkill, dude. I bet you're just the life of all the parties."

Keith has no idea what that's supposed to mean, but before he can ask, Lance plows on. "We're definitely going to see them again, okay? The band is gonna be back together before you know it, and then we are going to mock you endlessly. Just you wait and see."

"Looking forward to it," Keith tells him, uncomfortable in the face of all that optimism. He holds his breath, but that seems to be the right kind of response.

Lance laughs at him some more. "Buddy, you have no idea."

"Yeah, whatever." Keith closes his eyes. "Where did you end up when you guys came out of the wormhole?"

There's this about Lance: given a sufficient opening, he can talk like he's getting paid by the word for it. After God knows how many days of absolute silence, his babble is overwhelming. Keith lets it wash over him, listening with half an ear as Lance describes his adventures. Except—"Bull _shit_ , no one decided to make you the king of anything, Lance."

"It could happen!" Lance protests, but he can't fool Keith, his smarmy grin is practically audible.

"I pilot a magic, psychic robot lion for a living and I still don't believe this is a universe with a civilization anywhere in it that would make you its king," Keith informs him.

"Dude, that is like, _way_ harsh." Lance is laughing though. "But you got me. I was just making sure you were still listening."

Keith rolls his eyes. "It's not like I can get up and walk away."

"Sure you can, I've seen you do it a million times."

"I've done that maybe _once_ ," Keith says.

"Out here, maybe, but you did it all the time at the Garrison."

There's a funny note in the way Lance says that, though Keith has no clue what to call it. More of Lance's general weirdness, probably. There's a lot of that to go around. "Yeah, well, at the Garrison I didn't have a broken leg."

" _Dude_." The way Lance's mood shifts so fast could just about give Keith whiplash. He goes serious in the space between one heartbeat and the next. "A broken leg?"

"Yeah," Keith says. "Probably ribs, too. Definitely an arm."

Lance is quiet for so long that Keith could almost think they've lost the connection if not for the fact that he's had days and days to learn what that actually sounds like. This silence isn't the same at all.

At last Lance takes a breath. "Keith. Dude. You know these things come with seatbelts, don't you?"

As a matter of fact, no, Keith did not know that. He aims a query at Red and gets a pulse of surprise back from her that carries a definite sense of _I thought you knew_ mingled with a guilty _You didn't ask_.

"I'm going to take that as you being too proud to admit that you didn't know about the seatbelts," Lance announces, which is when Keith realizes he's been quiet for too long. "Buddy, we are gonna give you shit for the rest of your natural life. You are going to go down as a cautionary tale for future paladins: Don't be like this dumbfuck, they'll tell the baby paladins, always buckle your damned seatbelts. Congratulations, asshole, your legacy is all set."

"Oh, good, that's what I've always wanted," Keith says, watching a fleck of light moving across the horizon, too fast to be anything natural, at least form what he's seen of this planet (which, admittedly, isn't all that much).

"They'll write books about how much of a dumbfuck you are," Lance promises as the speck grows larger with every passing second. "We'll make it its own field of study, red paladins and recklessness." The speck gets larger, resolves into the ludicrous sight of a flying robot lion the color of the sky. "Someday there'll be case studies about what a complete _moron_ you are."

"Promises," Keith says as Blue touches down as lightly as something that size can, which is to say that the ground shakes beneath him and Red. "You got any water in there? I'm dying of thirst."

Lance is quiet for just a beat too long. "Not fucking funny, Keith."

"Are you kidding? That was hilarious." 

Lance makes an inarticulate, outraged sound; a moment later Blue's jaw opens and Lance comes pelting down her ramp. 

Keith lets out a breath and leans his head back against Red, glad enough to see someone, anyone, that he can't even cavil at the fact that it's Lance. And if that isn't a sign that he's in bad shape, he doesn't know what is.

"Hey," he says when Lance skids to a halt and drops down to crouch in front of him. He's got an armful of stuff, probably from Blue's own emergency kit, and if Keith is not mistaken, he's on the verge of freaking the fuck out. "Where's my water?"

"I don't know why Blue was in such a hurry to save your worthless dropout ass," Lance grumbles at the same time he's dropping his armload on the turf next to Keith. There are _two_ bottles of water in the jumble; Lance cracks the first one and shoves it into his hand. "Here's your fucking water."

Keith would like to give that the reply it deserves, but he's too busy with tipping the bottle's contents down his throat. It's warm and stale and Keith absolutely doesn't care, because it's the best thing he's ever tasted.

When he lowers the empty bottle, Lance has his helmet off and is glaring at him. "Now this one," he says as he plucks the empty bottle out of Keith's hand and substitutes the full one. 

Keith balks as something occurs to him. "Wait, just how much water do you still have left?" There's water nearby, but it's not as though they can be sure it's potable. Though he's not sure, at this point, if that would stop him. 

"A whole cargo hold, just about," Lance says, rolling his eyes. "Sheesh. Drink up."

Wait. "Cargo hold?"

"Yeah, the cargo hold—" Lance stops, frowns, and then rolls his eyes to the sky. "Oh my God, don't you and Red talk about anything ever?"

"We talk about things!" Keith protests. Lance gives him a look. "…flying things, mostly."

"I should've seen that one coming." Lance rolls his eyes and flaps a hand at him. "Drink up, you need it."

Keith can't argue that and does as he's told, though he takes this one slower, slow enough to watch Lance fuss with the rest of his armload. It looks like more stuff from the emergency kit, mostly, though there are more of the ration bars, one of which Lance unwraps for him and holds out. Keith eyes it with disfavor. "Guess that cargo hold doesn't have anything better?"

Lance snorts. "No, and believe me, I looked."

Keith sighs and sets his water down so he can grimly gnaw a bite off the bar—no, Blue's stock isn't any better than Red's.

Meanwhile, Lance sits back on his heels and looks him over. He's scowling at Keith—no, at Keith's makeshift sling, at the haphazard attempt he made at splinting his leg, at the way Keith is careful about how deeply he breathes. "Okay," he announces, grim. "Jus so you know, this next part is gonna suck."

Keith eyes him, made wary by that. "What part?"

"The part where I wish like hell that you'd used your damn seatbelts and that I'd taken that extra elective in first aid and emergency medicine," Lance tells him, still grim, and yeah, that's what Keith was afraid he was gonna say.

He chases another bite of ration bar with the last of the water. "Whatever. It can't be worse than getting knocked around the cockpit was."

Lance grimaces. "Oh, you just had to say it, didn't you?" he sighs. "You just had to go and flag Murphy down. You idiot." He shakes his head. "You said you think you've got some ribs broken?"

"Feels that way." Keith fans his fingers over the place where breathing hurts the worst, below where the edge of the chest plate of their armor hits. "Here."

Lance frowns. "Gonna have to get you out of that if I'm gonna wrap them." He chews on his lip. "If you're in bad enough shape, I don't know if we're going to be able to get it back on you."

"Not like it's done me much good," Keith points out. Besides, in the condition he's in right now, the armor won't even slow a Galra drone down. "Might as well get it off." He's been wearing it for over a week, anyhow. It may be fancy Altean tech but he still feels filthy inside it. 

Lance chews on his lip some more before he finally nods. "Right. Okay."

The next few minutes really do suck. Not that Keith can really focus a whole lot when he's gritting his teeth and trying not to shout as Lance helps him out of his chestplate and gauntlets. It's amazing how much moving his torso that requires, more than Keith ever noticed before getting thrown around Red's cockpit. By the time Lance has his armor spread out on the grass, Keith's skin is slick with sweat—hey, he's hydrated enough to be able to sweat again, that's good, right?—and he's dizzy.

Lance is looking pretty pale himself. "It's bad, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Keith says; there's no point in pretending it's not. "Let's just get this over with."

Lance hesitates. "Blue says there should be pain pills in the kit. She thinks they ought to be safe for us." 

"That's a bad idea and we both know it," Keith says before he can let himself be tempted. Too tempted. "Red can put me under if it gets too bad."

Lance opens his mouth and then stops, shaking his head. "Not gonna ask," he announces, reaching for the Altean splints and braces Keith hadn't had the dexterity to use himself. "Okay. Yell if you want. Blue says we're the largest living things her scanners can find on this continent." 

"Sure," Keith says, not intending on doing any such thing.

Yeah, so much for that.

By the time Lance has him stripped out of the flight suit and his arm and leg splinted, Keith's throat is raw and his face is wet. Lance doesn't say a word about either of those things, which is something Keith is going to have to remember to think about later, and one of the first things he does when Keith is able to stop panting for breath quite so hard is tear off a fresh length of bandage for him to wipe his face with. "Do me a favor, man, don't ever make me have to do something like this ever again," he says, not looking at Keith as he sorts out the mess he's made of his armload of supplies. 

"Sure," Keith rasps, which is all he can manage at the moment. "Do my best."

Lance nods, quick and choppy, and produces another bottle of water from God only knows where. "Drink that. I'm gonna start setting up camp. Yell if you need me, okay?"

"Okay," Keith says, too worn out to do anything but agree.

Lance darts a look at him, like he's searching for something, and nods. "Right."

Right, Keith thinks, making himself sip at the water even though lifting the bottle to his mouth is almost too much effort to make when his whole body feels like one giant throbbing nerve. He watches Lance gather up soiled bandages and unused emergency kit supplies—Lance leaves him a couple more bottles of water and two more ration bars—and head away. To Blue, probably.

Maybe there are camping supplies in that cargo hold, too.

Red nudges at him, the brush of her mind as close to tentative as Keith has ever known it to be. She feels worried, he thinks, maybe distressed. That had been a lot of yelling, and it's no secret that she's not an expert on squishy human biology.

Keith is too tired to pat her. "I'll be fine," he says. "We've got a chance now, anyway. It's more than we had before."

He doesn't know whether that's good enough for her, but she seems to accept it, which is plenty good enough for Keith.

 

 

Maybe he's so worn out by the ordeal of setting his broken bones or maybe Red helps him out, but Keith falls asleep sometime during Lance's many trips back and forth between Red and Blue. When he wakes up, the sun is just touching the horizon and Lance has managed to do a surprising amount of work. Apparently there _are_ camping supplies tucked away somewhere in the Lions, because Lance has erected a tent. 

[a bunch of stuff happens]

Lance comes back to camp with a carcass slung over his shoulder and a scowl on his face, which is explained when he dumps the dead whatever-it-is on the ground at Keith's feet and says, "So what are the odds that this thing might have been sentient?"

Keith eyes it—six legs, four eyes, two nasty-looking tusks—and shrugs. "Dunno. Why does it matter?"

"Why does it matter, he asks." Lance squats next to the fire and stirs it until the sparks blaze up; he adds a couple of logs to the blaze. "It matters because I don't really want to get home and find out that I've been eating potential allies, dude. Think of what the princess would say."

There's a certain merit to that position, Keith supposes. "Did you try communicating with it?"

Lance grimaces at the fire. "Yeah, it wasn't feeling talkative. Did try to gore me, though."

"Huh. Maybe it _was_ intelligent."

Lance flips him off without looking around and continues to poke at the fire, moody. Keith lets him get on with it and shifts himself around so he can get at the carcass. Lance has already field dressed it, but the hide is thick and scaly and probably not all that palatable. He pulls out his knife and begins the messy work of skinning the thing. He's getting better at it these days, though he's not sure whether that's a good thing or not. Whether it's something he _wants_ to be good at. 

He works in silence while the fire pops, the fresh logs beginning to catch and blaze up. It's messy, bloody work, the kind of thing that makes him wistful for food goo. He'd have figured it'd be a cold day in hell before _that_ ever happened, but then, he hadn't ever reckoned on getting stranded on a strange planet, either. Funny how that could change a guy's perspective.

The dead thing looks smaller without its hide, pathetic. Keith clears his throat. "It's ready to go. And can you get some water?"

Lance leaves off poking at the fire to spit the carcass and prop it up over the flames. "What'd you do, drink it all?"

"Not all of it, but there's not enough for me to clean up with. You'll want some later, too," Keith points out. 

Lance makes a face but picks up their makeshift water pouches, along with the sad remains of the hide. "Right. Back in a bit." He strides off into the undergrowth again, leaving Keith alone with the fire and the animal roasting over it. He doesn't try moving, doesn't want to get his messy fingers all over what passes for his bedding these days, and so he has to wait for Lance to dispose of the hide and trek to the spring and back. 

At least he'd been lucky enough to come down near a reliable source of water. That was about the _only_ luck he'd had, unless he wanted to count the fact that the corrupted wormhole had spat Lance out in the same solar system, close enough that his Lion could hear Red, close enough that he'd touched down before Keith could succumb to either his injuries or his thirst. Some days Keith is of two minds whether that had been lucky or not. Generally it depends on how much of an ass Lance feels like making of himself on that particular day. 

Today isn't too bad, though there's no telling what's buzzing around in Lance's head this time. Either he'll say something or he won't. Keith isn't going to try winkling whatever it is out of him, because if he does, there's a very good chance that Lance will tell him.

Keith already has enough nightmares without taking Lance's on, too, thanks.

The mess on his hands is already drying tacky and disgusting by the time he hears Lance crashing back towards camp. That's another of Lance's weird quirks; he's capable of stalking through the undergrowth quietly when he wants to. He just doesn't always make that choice. He's also whistling tunelessly, which either means he's shaken off whatever was bothering him or that he's decided that he needs to put on a good face for Keith.

"Hey, look what I found," he says as he strolls back into camp. He's carrying a branch of something green and leafy; Keith can just see glints of cherry red among the leaves. "Think they're edible?"

"Why don't you try one and find out?" Keith asks him. 

Lance grins. "That was my plan, yeah." He puts the branch and one of the water pouches down and brings the other to Keith. "Here."

Keith really hates the way Lance squats on his good side and pulls Keith's arm over his shoulder, hates the way Lance drags him to his feet and supports him while he finds his balance, and hates the way Lance paces him carefully as he hops away from his bedding and braces himself against one of Red's legs so he can rinse his hands clean. "Need anything else?" Lance asks him, and Keith hates that, too, the fact that Lance was gone for hours while he was foraging for food and the fact that he's going to have to accept help for this, too. 

"Yeah," he grits out, and allows himself to be assisted over to their latrine trench to attend to certain necessities.

By the time he's taken care of that and Lance has helped him back to the fire, there's sweat prickling down Keith's spine and he feels wrung out. It's a relief to settle back into his bed, such as it is, and stretch out his aching leg. The thing on the spit is beginning to sizzle; Lance turns it so it will roast evenly and says, "How's it feeling?"

"About the same," Keith reports. Broken bones knit slowly without the aid of a cryo pod, and that's all there is to it. 

Lance sighs and pokes at the fire again. 

Keith pointedly ignores him and picks up the branch Lance brought back, examining it. The leaves are more like fronds—ferns?—than the kinds of leaves familiar from Earth, but the berries look normal enough—round and small, maybe the size of his thumbnail, hanging in clusters among the fronds. "Where did you find this?"

"They're growing by the water," Lance says. "I've been watching them get ripe. Looks like they're just about there to me."

Keith turns the branch in his hands; the berries glint in the fading sunlight. "Tried them yet?"

"No, I figured I'd get back to camp first, in case they made me keel over dead," Lance says. "Wouldn't want you to wonder what happened to me and all that."

"No, you'd just leave me here with your rotting corpse," Keith tells him.

Lance grins at him. "Think of how much fun you'll have abusing it, though."

That's not really funny, but he doesn't bother saying so. If he started pointing out all the times Lance's jokes suck, he'll never stop. Instead, Keith looks at the berries, considering them. They've been lucky—so lucky—that the water has been good and not made them sick, that Lance has been able to hunt game (possibly sentient or not) to keep them fed, that they're the largest life signs any of their scanners have picked up on this particular continent. Sooner or later their luck is going to run out. "I should try them first."

"How do you figure that?" Lance wants to know. He's grinning. "I found them, I should get the first shot."

"I'm already compromised," Keith says. "If they're poisonous, I'm less of a loss."

Lance stops smiling. "What the _fuck_."

"Do the math, Lance." Keith waves the branch at his splinted leg and then at Lance, whole and hale and hearty. "It makes sense. You're still in one piece and so is Blue. You can get out of this any time you want. I can't. So I should be the one that tests them."

He doesn't expect Lance to give in gracefully, since Lance doesn't even know the meaning of the word, but he doesn't expect Lance to get angry, either. But he does. "You shut your goddamned mouth, Kogane," he grates out. "You're getting out of this just fine, we're going to go home just _fine_ , and neither one of us is going to be a fucking _loss_."

Easy for him to say with his two working legs and his two working arms and his perfectly functional Lion. Keith has a broken leg and a busted arm and probably a couple of cracked ribs to boot, and he's in far better shape than Red is. The two of them are stuck on this stupid planet until help arrives. If help ever does arrive. It's an awfully big universe.

Keith doesn't say any of that. "Sure, Lance," he says. "Whatever." He strips a couple of berries off the branch and pops them in his mouth; they burst against his palate, tangy-sweet, and taste more like apples than any kind of berry Keith's ever known. Huh. Go figure. 

What he's not expecting is for Lance to growl and fling himself at Keith, which startles him into dropping the branch. Lance knocks into him and Keith goes down, can't really do otherwise in his current condition, and while he's lying flat on his back and breathing through the ache in his ribs, Lance snatches up the branch and stuffs a whole handful of berries in his mouth. He chews them and swallows and bares red-stained teeth at Keith. "Either we both get out of this or neither of us does, you got that?"

Keith looks up at him, the fierceness of his scowl and the way it doesn't quite hide the fear lurking in Lance's eyes. "Yeah, sure. Got it."

Lance scowls at him. "I'm _serious_ , damn it. If I have to haul your sorry ass out of here myself, I will. Don't think I won't."

And he will, too. Keith can see that. Lance will get them both off this godforsaken ball of dirt or die trying. 

He can sort of respect that, even though it doesn't make any practical sense whatsoever. But then, Lance never has struck him as being the practical sort. 

"All right," Keith says. He drops his head back and stares at the deepening color of the sky. "Together or not at all."

"Damn straight." After a second, Lance flops down next to him. He blows out a breath. "Asshole."

Keith snorts at him and doesn't bother to reply. Above them, the sky turns to violet that deepens to purple; the stars begin to come out, and the thing roasting over the fire begins to smell like meat. Presently, he says, "I don't think we're dying."

"Doesn't look like it," Lance says. He sticks the branch in Keith's face; it's starting to look a little bedraggled. "Want some more?"

"Why not?" Keith plucks a handful of berries off the branch and eats them, one by one; they taste good. 

Lance finishes the rest of them himself and tosses the branch away. "We're going to get out of here, you know."

"Yeah," Keith says, watching the stars as they begin to fill the night sky. One of them might be the castle-ship. One of them might be home. "We will."

"Yeah," Lance echoes. "We sure will."

Keith doesn't say anything else. It's not him that Lance is trying to convince, after all. But he does reach over and drops his hand on top of Lance's. Lance sucks in a breath, but after a second, he turns his hand over and slots his fingers with Keith's. 

Neither of them lets go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Basically season two jossed the hell out of this and I couldn't figure out how to make it work. But the fic was basically just going to be about Keith learning to rely on Lance, and Lance beginning to understand what makes Keith tick, and the two of them figuring out how to be friends.


	4. Kuroko no Basuke: The Hitman AU does its version of that Liam Neeson movie (AoKuro)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sequel to Like Mr. and Mrs. Smith (But Totally Not): Aomine gets kidnapped. Kuroko and Momoi lose their collective shit. Kagami is the only sane person he knows, and his life is suffering.

Eventually Daiki got tired of all the dithering and put his foot down. "Fuck's sake, guys, this is a _milk run_ ," he said, exasperated. "I think I can handle it all by myself."

Tetsu and Satsuki both fixed expressions of disbelief on him at that, which was bad enough, but that dickhead Kagami actually rolled his eyes and muttered a distinctly audible, "Yeah, right."

Daiki flipped him off on general principles and then folded his arms across his chest. "I'm the fucking Panther, for Chrissakes. This'll be a piece of cake. I don't see what the big deal is."

There was really no call for Satsuki to go and slap her forehead at that. Fortunately for all of them, Imayoshi chose to intervene before Daiki could get properly exercised about their lack of faith in his abilities. "I'm glad to hear that," he drawled. "Seeing as how the matter isn't actually up for debate and all."

"See? The boss thinks I'll be fine," Daiki said, basking in the warm glow of vindication.

That glow vanished almost immediately, just as soon as Imayoshi said, "Well, now, I never said _that_." He bestowed a smile sleek as silk on Daiki. "But as you said, this is a milk run and I expect you won't get yourself into too much trouble, even if Momoi isn't there to hold your leash." He moved along briskly before Daiki could do more than squawk his protest or Kagami could snicker more than once. "In any case, I need her particular deft touch with Kaijou, and I prefer not to have a repeat of the Manila Incident—" That had been the only time he'd tried to have Daiki work with Kagami and was the reason that neither of them were allowed near the Philippines these days. "—or the Portland Affair."

Daiki let go of his pique long enough to exchange fondly reminiscent glances with Tetsu. _That_ had been a fun job all around, and nothing the rest of them said was going to change his mind about that.

Imayoshi caught that and cleared his throat. "Yes, I can see that you remember why I prefer not to assign the both of you to this job. I want to send a message, not salt the earth."

Tetsu sniffed. "I suppose that's fine, if you prefer the boring approach."

"Boredom has many things to recommend it," Imayoshi said, unbothered by Tetsu's idle jabs. Daiki's private suspicion was that he enjoyed the fact that Tetsu made them, as Tetsu was one of the few who _would_. "Besides which, the two of you haven't done anything lately to warrant a treat like that, so my decision stands." He clapped his hands together, brisk. "Now get out of my office and go get some work done."

They went, though Satsuki continued to look grim and Kagami skeptical. She worried too much and he was just an asshole that way. Not that it mattered much; the boss had spoken and that was all that really mattered in the end. Daiki grinned at them all impartially and slung his arm around Tetsu's shoulders. "Man, it's really not fair for Imayoshi to keep siccing you on Kasamatsu," he told Satsuki.

Her expression lightened a bit and she smiled. "Why else do you think he does it?" Then she went serious again. "I don't like it, though. Dai-chan, promise me that you'll be careful."

Daiki rolled his eyes. "I'll be _fine_ ," he said. "Jesus, even Kagami could handle this one without any problems. What could possibly go wrong?"

"Would you like the list in alphabetical order or itemized by order of magnitude?" she retorted over the ruckus of Kagami's sputterings. "Honestly, you haven't run a job all by yourself since—"

Daiki interrupted her before she could dredge up all that ancient history. "Jesus, I'll be careful, I promise! This is gonna be easy, I swear. Hell, I'll be back before you've even had a chance to miss me."

"Famous last words, I'm sure," Tetsu murmured as Kagami said, "Who would miss a jerk like you?"

At that point Daiki had to turn loose of Tetsu in order to administer Kagami's richly deserved pummeling, and the conversation was dropped during the ensuing chaos.

It was just as well as far as he was concerned. Honestly, everyone he knew worried way too much. Seriously—he was the Panther and this was an easy, in-and-out job. What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

The problem was, Murphy was an asshole and that was all there was to it. "Sure," Daiki muttered under his breath. "This is an easy job, no problem, what could _possibly_ go wrong? God, I'm a moron." Kagami was about a million miles away, so it was safe to say so out loud. "Fucking Murphy."

There was no escaping now—he'd dispensed with the job with precisely as little difficulty as he'd expected and had gotten cleanly away. So maybe he'd been a little careless about letting his guard down. It had been such an _easy_ job that he hadn't thought anything of it, which had been a mistake. Now he was being hunted down by one of the most relentless sons of bitches he'd ever had the misfortune of encountering and his back was literally against a wall.

"Aominecchi!"

Daiki did his best to dig a hole in the brickwork with his shoulder blades and summoned up a smile as Kise bounded over to him, all sunny smiles and extravagant gestures. Kise seized his shoulders and promptly kissed his cheeks before stepping back and beaming at him some more. He was well and truly caught now, so there was no helping it. He'd just have to go through with it. "Kise. You're looking well." Kise _always_ looked good, naturally—Satsuki called him a fashion maven, whatever _that_ meant—but Daiki could admit that he did seem to have a knack for choosing clothes that accentuated his height and vivid coloring, and had, as Daiki recalled, many highly uncomplimentary things to say about Daiki's own wardrobe.

Kise pursed his lips and proved the point. "I wish I could say the same, but really." He plucked at Daiki's shirt with his fingertips and wrinkled his nose. "Paisley _and_ polyester, Aominecchi? _Really_?"

"Fuck you, I like this shirt," Daiki told him, because he did, not least because he'd managed to keep it out of Tetsu's destructive clutches for most of a month. It was a new record.

"You have tragically bad taste." Kise pulled a mournful face. "The things I could do with you, if only you'd let me."

"If you want to play dress-up, buy a Barbie doll." Daiki shrugged Kise's hands off his shoulders. "What the hell are you doing here, anyway?"

"Oh, you know." Kise shrugged carelessly and insinuated his arm through Daiki's. "Business as usual, but that's too boring to talk about! Come with me, I know a fantastic little place that's practically just around the corner. We can have something to eat and catch up!" He towed Daiki along, presumably in the direction of whichever café or bistro had caught his attention this time. "It's been _ages_ since I've seen you. You never call me anymore."

"Actually, I was—" Daiki tried to extricate himself from Kise's grip, for all the good it did him. Kise only _looked_ willowy and actually had a grip like steel. "I had an appointment—"

Kise glanced at him, squinted, and then shook his head. "Still can't lie worth a damn, Aominecchi," he said cheerfully. "You really shouldn't bother trying."

"I never should have slept with you," Daiki grumbled, surrendering to his inevitable fate. "It was clearly a mistake."

Kise did that thing where he made his eyes go all wide and sad and shiny and his lips went trembly and uncertain. It was a sham, Daiki knew for a fact that it was a sham, and yet the air of utter devastation with which Kise said, small and pitiful, "If you don't _want_ to see me, you don't _have_ to come to lunch with me, it's okay," still managed to punch him in the gut. 

He ran his free hand over his face. "No, it's fine, I don't mind."

"Are you sure?" Kise asked, still wearing his cloak of tragedy. "I wouldn't want to be a bother."

"Of course I'm sure." Daiki sighed. "C'mon, let's go."

Kise turned the woe off like it was a faucet. "Fantastic! This is going to be fun!"

"You are a manipulative bastard and I hate you," Daiki told him.

Kise just smiled at him, laughing a bit. "No, you don't, and hey, it gets me what I want. Now stop dragging your feet, I'm dying for a coffee and they do the most fantastic pastries at this place, you've got to try them to believe them. If we hurry we might still be in time to get some caneles." 

"Huh." The prospect cheered Daiki somewhat. "You don't say." Not that he had ever known Kise to be wrong when it came to matters of taste, even if he tended to exaggerate. If he said the place was good, it was certain to be good. "Guess this won't be completely awful, in that case."

"You're so _mean_ ," Kise said, going mournful. "And after all we've shared, too."

"Never claimed to be anything else." Daiki shrugged. "You knew that from the start."

"I guess I did." Kise smiled, a bit tilted and wry. "More fool I." He cast a glance at Daiki, slanting it at him through his lashes. "I have a flat here in town, if you'd like to go there instead…"

Ah. Huh. Damn, awkward. "Thanks, but I've got a boyfriend who'd kill me, sorry." Though Tetsu would probably castrate him before shooting him, and frankly he didn't even want to think about what would happen if Kagami happened to get to him before Tetsu did. Fuck knew that he'd made it clear just how much suffering there would be in Daiki's future if he ever hurt Tetsu's feelings again.

Kise looked at him again, his brows raised. "Really," he said, looking as though he doubted his own ears.

"Yeah, sorry. No offense, but I like him and I really like breathing." Daiki shrugged. "We can still do lunch, though."

Fucked if he could tell what Kise thought about that; he went all inscrutable for several paces before finally saying, "You've changed, Aominecchi."

"Have I?" Daiki rubbed his chin, puzzling that over—he didn't feel as though he'd changed all that much since the last time he'd run into Kise.

"You have." Kise smiled then. "Forget the coffee, let's get a bottle of wine and you can tell me how it happened."

Daiki would have taken a bullet before admitting it, but that didn't sound like too bad of a way to pass the afternoon at all… so okay, maybe he had changed a little bit after all. In any case, he didn't argue with Kise's proposal for more than form's sake.

 

 

The sun had dipped below the horizon and they'd shared more than one bottle of wine before they'd run out of news to share—all appropriately discreet, of course, because Daiki wasn't stupid no matter what that jerk Kagami seemed to think. Kise had flirted the afternoon away, as was his way, but even Daiki could tell that it was a desultory effort. He put more effort into his attentions to the woman who kept them supplied with wine than he did to Daiki. Even so, when Daiki turned down the suggestion of more wine and made noise about going instead, Kise tried one last time.

He laid his hand over Daiki's when he made to stand. "Are you sure I can't change your mind about going home to this boyfriend of yours?"

Daiki slid his hand out from beneath Kise's fingers. "I wasn't kidding when I said that he'd kill me." He shrugged at Kise, apologetic. "Sorry."

Kise heaved a sigh, so dramatic that his shoulders rose and fell with it. He turned a mournful expression on Daiki. "Damn. If I'd had any idea that you were the least bit inclined to settle down…"

Kise was supremely versatile when it came to the emotions he displayed. Daiki knew that, he really did, knew that and knew better than to assume that whatever Kise was displaying had anything to do with his true feelings. Even so, the faint shadow of wistfulness in his expression made Daiki shuffle his feet uncomfortably. "Caught me by surprise, too," he said at last.

Kise smiled then. "I'll bet it did. Ah, well. C'est la vie." He rose, shedding his melancholy as he did, and promptly embraced Daiki again, kissing his cheeks. "Look me up if you ever decide you want a change."

Daiki grunted, noncommittal, and disentangled himself as politely as he could. "You take care of yourself, Kise."

Kise laughed and swept him a little bow. "I always do. You do the same, Aominecchi. Watch your back."

Daiki blinked—that seemed like a peculiar thing to say, even for Kise—but Kise merely smiled at him, guileless, and there was no saying whether he meant anything by it at all. "You too," he said after a moment, and they went their separate ways.

Daiki thrust his hands into his pockets and ambled through the cooling evening air, still a bit bemused by Kise's—what had that been, a warning? A general piece of advice? Far as he knew, there wasn't anyone pissed off with him at the moment. No more than usual, at any rate. Not that he paid much attention to that, really, when Satsuki and Tetsu between them did a much more efficient, thorough job of it. That was why they all worked so well together.

He mulled it over as he negotiated his way to the little hotel that had served as his base of operations for this job, but he couldn't think of anything to warrant such a warning. Surely it was nothing, he thought—just Kise being more peculiar than usual, and why not? Apparently Kise had been—well, if not invested, at least willing to consider it. Maybe that was just his way of saying goodbye or something.

The moment he came to that conclusion (or tried to), he all but heard Satsuki saying, "That's _lazy_ , Dai-chan," in her most disapproving tones. Daiki grimaced and dug into his pocket, dialing her number. The call went straight through to voicemail, which meant that she was either deep in negotiations with Kaijou or doing something that it was better he not think too closely about lest his head explode. "Yeah, hey, it's me," he said when the tone sounded. "Look, can you think of any reason why Kise would tell me to watch my back? Let me know. See you soon—"

The wire stretched across the pavement, a bare handspan above the ground, was all but invisible in the low light. Daiki caught the barest glint of it as it snapped taut, which allowed him to turn his fall into a more controlled dive when he tripped over it. He hit the ground hard, shoulder first, and fuck alone knew where his phone landed when it flew from his hand. Daiki ignore the sudden blossom of pain and used every bit of his fall's momentum and then some to keep going, propelling himself into a roll that brought him up into a ready crouch as he dragged his gun from the holster at the small of his back and scanned the street for his assailants.

The street was empty.

"What the _fuck_?" Daiki demanded, not lowering his gun, which didn't do him any good at all when the two prongs attached to wires bit into his back and several thousand volts of electricity slammed through his body. His vision whited out as every muscle in his body spasmed at once in response to the current. It went on and on, entire eternities passing while Daiki lose all semblance of control over his body and hit the pavement, writhing helplessly. When it stopped, eons later, his mouth was full of the taste of his own blood and none of his muscles would obey him, no matter how he strained to marshal them to his command—to stand up, to find his gun, to fucking _open his eyes_ —

"Is he down already?" someone said (male, young, disappointed). "Geez."

A boot connected with Daiki's shoulder, rolling him onto his stomach. Daiki groaned, struggling away from the hands that seized on his arms, dragging them behind his back and securing them there. Someone laughed at his flailing, uncoordinated resistance. "Poor kitty-cat." Another voice, male, lilting. He felt a hand pat his head. "Why don't you just take a little nap?"

"Fuck you," Daiki said, or tried to say, but a needle bit into the flesh of his arm and he had no way of knowing whether anything had actually come out of his mouth before he slipped into unconsciousness.

 

 

Taiga knew it was going to be bad when Momoi came back from Kaijou early and walked right into the middle of his and Kuroko's sparring match without bothering to even pretend that she was cute, harmless, and incapable of putting a man twice her size down without turning a hair. Taiga looked up at her from his sprawl across the mat and his protest of the unexpected attack died unspoken in his throat, because he recognized the look on her face. The last time he'd seen it, he'd been zip-tied to a chair in Detroit and she'd been threatening to carve chunks off him if he didn't tell her exactly what she'd wanted to know.

Kuroko drew himself up as Taiga sat up. "What is it?"

"Listen." Momoi held out her phone and hit the play button.

The recording—no, the voicemail—was a little staticky, but the Tomcat's lazy drawl was unmistakable. "Yeah, hey, it's me. Look, can you think of any reason why Kise would tell me to watch my back? Let me know. See you soon—" Whatever else Aomine had been planning to add, if anything, broke off in a startled oath and a horrendous crashing sound. Probably from the phone being dropped, if Taiga was any judge. It was followed by a moment of silence and then the distant sound of Aomine's voice saying _what the fuck_ , and then—Taiga guessed he knew what had put that look on Momoi's face, because God knew he wouldn't have wanted to listen to his partner being tased, either. Or listen to his assailants making condescending remarks about how easy it had been to take him down before the recording finally cut off.

Kuroko had not moved since Momoi had come in and thrown Taiga over her hip. He remained motionless now, as though he'd been carved from stone, and stared back at Momoi. That, Taiga figured, didn't bode well at all. He cleared his throat and climbed to his feet, which didn't even earn a glance in his direction. Okay. Well, he wasn't sleeping with the Tomcat and he hadn't grown up pulling the Tomcat's chestnuts out of the fire, which meant that he was currently the only sane person in the room. "How long ago did that voicemail come in?"

"Ten hours ago." Momoi's voice was utterly flat, and yet—Well, maybe that was self-recrimination or maybe it wasn't. Taiga wasn't going to comment on it either way. "I didn't check it until this morning."

Whereupon she'd probably been on the next flight home, Taiga assumed. He looked at Kuroko, still stock-still and starting to worry him a bit. He cleared his throat again, uneasy. "So, Kise—Kise?"

"Kaijou's enforcer," Kuroko said, toneless, which didn't do much to assuage Taiga's growing concern. Didn't explain Aomine's question, either. 

"Right." Taiga ran his fingers through his hair. "Why would Kaijou's enforcer give Aomine that warning? I didn't think anyone was more pissed off with him than usual." Granted, there were plenty of people who maintained a general low-grade irritation with the Tomcat, but that was wholly understandable.

"I don't know," Momoi said. "I propose to go and find out what he knows."

"That seems like an excellent starting point to me," Kuroko agreed, measuring out each syllable with surgical precision. It put a chill down Taiga's spine, and it didn't help when he immediately added, "Let's go."

"Wait," Taiga said when the two of them turned for the door. "Wait, don't we need to tell someone about this? Imayoshi, maybe?"

"Later." Momoi waived the idea aside impatiently. "We need to get to Prague before Kise leaves."

Taiga opened his mouth to say what he thought about _that_ , but Kuroko says, "Ten hours. There is no time to waste." 

The utter emptiness of his tone put another cold chill down Taiga's spine, and he changed his mind about arguing. "Okay," he said. "Um. I guess we can call him while we're in the air."

"Whatever," Momoi said. "Let's _go_."

This, Taiga decided as he trailed after Kuroko to go pack his gun, this was going to be bad.

As it turned out, he had no idea what an understatement that would turn out to be in the end.

 

 

The first sign that all was not well in his little world came when Shouichi answered the phone, only to hear Kasamatsu's irate tones on the other end of the line, saying, "I hope you know that this is a cheap trick and that it's not going to work."

Shouichi settled back in his chair, since conversations with Kasamatsu were always a pleasure to be enjoyed to the fullest, and smiled. "Oh, I have no doubt of that. You're much too sharp to be duped by such petty little tricks."

For his pains, he got an actual growl of outrage, which usually took much more effort to achieve. "If you thought that, you wouldn't have authorized it!"

"Now, now," Shouichi temporized. "You really can't blame a man for trying, can you?"

"I can blame _you_ for anything," Kasamatsu muttered. "I'm not going to budge on those numbers. You might as well send that pink-haired menace back over here so we can get this done."

Shouichi blinked—send Momoi _back_? "I'll do that just as soon as I speak to her," he said, trusting that Kasamatsu would not guess that Momoi's absence had not been authorized. "You have a lovely day now, you hear?"

The exasperated growl he got in return was hardly as gratifying as it ought to have been.

Shouichi drummed his fingers against the desk and then picked up the phone again to call down to Susa's office. "Yoshinori, find out where Momoi is for me."

His right hand sounded startled. "She ought to be in negotiations with Kaijou, speaking with Kasamatsu—"

"She's not," Shouichi told him. "Find out where she's gone instead." He hung up before Susa could respond and drummed his fingers against the desk some more, waiting. 

His phone rang again within minutes; Susa sounded baffled when he said, "She's taking the jet to Prague. But first she came _here_ , and Kuroko and Kagami left with her."

"Thank you, Yoshinori." So Momoi was on her way to Prague, where Aomine had been assigned to what should have been an extremely simple assassination, and she had taken the Ghost and his partner with her. Shouichi was not given to idle profanity, but now he allowed himself the relief of uttering something brief and vulgar. This did not bode well at all.

Aomine's number produced an out-of-service message, and both Momoi and Kuroko's numbers went straight to voicemail. Kagami answered on the second ring. "Sir," he said. Apparently he had plenty of good sense, because he sounded nervous.

"Kagami," Shouichi said, and heard him gulp. "Tell me. What in the world do the three of you think you're doing?"

"Aomine has gone missing," Kagami said. "He may have been abducted. We're… going to see whether we can't find him." Or what was left him, he did not say. He didn't have to; Shouichi could supply that well enough on his own.

Shouichi slid his fingers underneath his glasses and gripped the bridge of his nose. "I don't figure the three of you would turn around and come back home if I told you to."

"…no, sir," Kagami said, slow and careful. "I… don't think that's likely to happen."

No, he hadn't supposed it would be. Kuroko was demonstrably not rational on the subject of Aomine, and Momoi was even worse. "Is there any chance that you might be able to restrain them?"

Kagami was quiet for so long that Shouichi wondered whether they had been disconnected. Then he said, "I sincerely do not believe that that is something I can do."

"That's what I was afraid of." One of his best people was missing, and two of the others had slipped their leashes, and there was very likely nothing he could do to bring them back. "In that case, I expect regular status reports and that you do what damage control that you can."

Kagami's relief was nearly palpable. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I will."

Shouichi tried to smile, though it didn't work as well as it normally did. "Good luck, Kagami. And good hunting." 

He ended the call and sat in silence until Susa came in, some instinct prompting him that he was wanted. "Boss?"

Shouichi took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, it seems like we have a… situation."

 

 

The only good thing about their current predicament was that Imayoshi was smart enough to know better than to ask for the impossible. That was cold comfort, though, Taiga thought gloomily. He checked on the other two again, but nothing had changed. Momoi was hunched over her laptop; last he had heard, she was calling in every favor she was owed and blackmailing anyone who'd been foolish enough to let her get her hands on their secrets. Taiga didn't think this had gotten her any information yet, because there were deep grooves bracketing the thin, tense line of her mouth, and she was glaring at her laptop's screen.

Kuroko wore no expression whatsoever; he sat in his seat and stared straight ahead. The only sign that he had not been turned into stone altogether was the way he tapped his forefinger against the armrest of his seat.

Taiga was no stranger to Kuroko's moods—hell, he probably knew them as well or better than even that dickhead Aomine—but he'd never seen Kuroko so tense, not in all the years they'd worked together. He didn't mind admitting that it was starting to freak him out.

He took refuge from the oppressive silence of the cabin by pinging Alex again. This time she actually answered, thank goodness. _What is it, kiddo?_ she typed.

Taiga exhaled and pounded out his reply. _tomcat's gone missing, maybe abducted, right in the middle of a job. please say you know something._

Alex's reply was not long in coming. _shiiiiiiit_ , she wrote, which did seem to sum it up pretty well. _your partner gone off the deep end yet?_ Before he could even begin to answer, she added, _more off the deep end, i mean, considering._

Taiga glanced across the cabin at Kuroko (tap, tap, tap, went his finger against the armrest) and wrote, _he's gone really quiet and still. this is gonna be bad._

_you are the king of understatement, kiddo. watch out for him._

_when do I not?!_ Taiga demanded of her.

_no, i mean WATCH OUT for him, jesus. you do remember what happened to fukuda, don't you???_

Taiga stared at the screen, trying to figure out who or what Fukuda was. _was that before my time?_

_...shit, taiga, how can you not know these things??? there is no fukuda anymore, because the ghost destroyed them. because they killed his partner._

Taiga took a carefully controlled breath and let it out again before typing, _do you have a few more details than that?_

_not too many. they were a syndicate, the ghost had some dealing with them that just went bad somehow, his partner ended up dead, and the ghost hunted down every last one of them for it. they don't exist anymore._

_well, shit,_ Taiga wrote after a bit. _this is really going to suck. please tell me you know something._

_not yet. but let me see what i can do._

Taiga looked over at the stern, unsmiling line of Kuroko's jaw (Tap. Tap. Tap.), and typed, _cost is no object_. 

_i figured_. She signed off with no more ceremony than that, leaving Taiga to stare at the chat log. "Alex is working on it now," he announced, for lack of anything else to say. Kuroko gave no sign of having heard, and Momoi grunted at him absently.

Taiga leaned his head back against the seat and heartily regretted the job that had taken Kuroko to Toledo in the first place.

 

 

"So," Taiga said after they'd touched down and escaped the airport. "How the heck does Aomine rate getting warnings from one of Kaijou's people anyway?" Sure, Touou had a business relationship with Kaijou, but as far as he knew, they weren't all warm and fuzzy with each other.

Momoi didn't answer, not right away. First she glanced at Kuroko and bit her lip. "They've been friendly."

Kuroko spoke for the first time in hours. "You mean that they've fucked." He'd folded himself into the back seat without a word and had left the passenger seat to Kagami, which was a sign that nothing in the world was right.

Momoi cleared her throat and shrugged. "Essentially, yes."

Taiga sputtered a little, mostly for form's sake. "Is there anyone in this business he _hasn't_ slept with?"

"More now than there used to be," Momoi said. "There's a reason that calling him the Tomcat stuck so easily."

That was when Aomine should have spoken up, all outrage and indignation over his hated nickname, but of course he wasn't there to do it. Probably he wouldn't be—no, Taiga wasn't going to think about that yet, for their sake. There was still a chance, it hadn't even been twenty-four hours yet. 

"So Kise's still in town?" he asked, filling in the awkward silence. Of course he knew perfectly well that everything Momoi had turned up said that Kise was still around, but needs must. "What are we going to do with him when we find him?"

"We're going to make him tell us everything he knows," Kuroko said, effectively doubling his conversational output for the day.

"By any means necessary," Momoi added.

"…right," Taiga said. "You don't think that Kaijou will object to that at all?"

"So what if they do?" Kuroko asked, and, well, Momoi didn't disagree with him, which pretty much answered that.

 

 

When Daiki woke up, everything hurt from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair, and it was all he could do for the first few minutes of consciousness to lie where he was and not groan. His head pounded like it was beneath a jackhammer and his mouth had a taste in it like a sewer. This was not helped by how dry it was.

To make matters worse, he'd been stripped down to his underwear. The moment he realized that, he began to shiver uncontrollably.

He was sprawled against a concrete surface—a floor, he decided, petting it gingerly. It was sucking the heat right out of him, though, so he gritted his teeth and began the unpleasant process of forcing himself up, first into a sitting position. That was when he really registered that there were cuffs on his wrists and his ankles.

Teeth chattering in the darkness, Daiki set about discovering their configuration, hampered by the pitch blackness of the room. There was barely any slack in the chains that connected his manacles together, and it was less than a hand's span in length. There was more slack between the leg shackles, probably enough that he could shuffle around… but the two chains were connected by a third, one that was so short that he could not even stand up straight or stretch his legs out to their full length without hunching over. Worse, there was yet another chain that ran from his left ankle to a staple set in the floor. When he finally gained his feet and tested its length, he estimated that his total radius wasn't more than half a meter from that staple. It was located in a corner, no less, further hampering his movement.

Daiki set his teeth and hobbled back and forth, forcing himself to get his blood moving. There was nothing within his reach but cold cinderblock walls and—when he tripped over it—a bucket. That didn't bode at all well for his long-term prospects, he thought grimly, and continued to pace until he wasn't shivering quite as much.

When he'd accomplished that, Daiki took a deep breath and tried to shout. His first efforts came out more like a croak, so he tried again. "Hey!" he yelled; his voice sounded loud in the space, bouncing back to him off the bare walls. Wherever he was confined, it wasn't very big. "Hey, is anyone there? Can anyone hear me? Hey!"

He shouted for a long time, until his throat hurt and his mouth was as arid as a desert. 

There was no reply at all.

Daiki slumped against the wall eventually, wrapping his arms around himself as best as he could when the chill of the cinderblocks made his skin jump and crawl. "Fuck," he whispered. "Fuck, this isn't good." 

That seemed like an understatement—that was what Tetsu would have said if he were here, dry as old bones, and he'd be right of course. This was so fucking bad, Daiki didn't even have words to describe the scope of its badness. So he didn't bother trying. Instead he sat down, pulling his knees against his chest to conserve as much body heat as he could, and he began working on the staple embedded in the floor to see whether it couldn't be loosened or dislodged.

After all, it wasn't like there was any better way for him to pass the time.

 

 

"I would like to go on record as saying that I think this is probably not the most tactful way we could be approaching Kise," Taiga said as he tugged his gloves on and flexed his fingers to settle them into place. "Are you _sure_ we can't just contact him in the usual fashion, Touou to Kaijou, and ask him to share what he knows?"

"No." Beneath the rolled-up edge of his balaclava, Kuroko's eyes were as flat as his tone. "That would give him the chance to escape or begin concocting a cover story. We don't have any time to waste on that."

That was an unanswerable point, because Taiga sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to tell Kuroko it was already too late to worry about that. In this mood, Kuroko seemed entirely capable of shooting the messenger. "My point still stands. I just want you to know that I think this is a bad idea."

"Noted," Kuroko said, and it was clear that Taiga's objection had been summarily dismissed. He pulled his balaclava down. "They're coming."

Taiga was already folding his own balaclava down as well, because he'd seen it too—Momoi turning the corner, her arm linked with a tall blond man's. They seemed to be talking with great animation, laughing back and forth like old friends or lovers. Momoi leaned into him as they came close to their parked van. Taiga tensed, waiting for the moment when she slipped her free hand into her coat pocket… there she went, dipping her fingers into her pocket. She walked a bit farther, taking two steps for Kise's every one, and then stumbled. She caught hold of Kise's arm, and Taiga and Kuroko launched themselves from the van. 

Kise wasn't half-bad; he reacted almost as soon as he'd registered the sting of the needle, flinging Momoi away from him and probably going for a gun in the same motion. He hadn't reckoned on her having confederates armed with guns, however. Taiga leapt for him while he was still reacting and trying to process the new variables, no doubt hampered by whatever drug Momoi had loaded her needle with. He caught Kise with an arm around his throat and a gun against his ribs and promptly began yelling at him to get in the van, hopefully in what was passable Czech. Someone screamed, Momoi probably, for the sake of verisimilitude, as Kuroko began hustling her into the van. 

Kise struggled and swore, already starting to slur his words, but Taiga was able to manhandle him into the van after Momoi (already shedding her long coat and pulling a balaclava of her own over her head as she scrambled forward to the driver's seat). Kuroko hauled the doors shut after them while Kise went sprawling against the van's floor and began thrashing there. Taiga pinned him and secured his hands behind his back as Momoi gunned the engine and took off.

All told, the whole operations had taken thirty seconds to execute.

Kise stopped moving after a moment, his muscles going lax. Taiga rolled him over as his breathing went stertorous and peeled back an eyelid to ensure that he wasn't shamming it—no, the pupil was blown and didn't contract with the sudden light. Thus satisfied, he holstered his gun and leaned back against the wall of the van with a sigh. "At least that went well," he remarked, peeling the balaclava off and running a hand through his hair to settle it back into place.

Kuroko might not have even heard him; he was staring down at Kise's slack expression with the attitude of a cat waiting at a mouse's hole.

Watching him, Taiga did not think that it was going to be a good day to be Kise Ryouta.

 

 

Aomine's gear was still at the cheap flat he'd rented, a couple of hideous shirts spilling out of his duffle, a spare magazine discarded on the kitchen table, unwashed dishes in the sink—all signs that he'd planned on returning. Taiga wrestled Kise's limp bulk into one of the rickety kitchen chairs and secured him while Momoi saw to the windows, tacking up blankets to cover them. Kuroko—Kuroko stooped over Aomine's duffle and came up with a shirt clutched in a white-knuckled fist and an expression that could have been carved by a glacier. 

Taiga averted his eyes from it and focused on Kise instead, sagging in his restraints and still out cold, not that Taiga had expected any different. Momoi was terribly good at calculating dosages and timing.

She finished tacking up the last of the blankets and retrieved her case of chemicals. Taiga got out of her way and glanced at Kuroko—no, he decided, Kuroko was in no mood to talk or be reassured, not when he'd gone and retreated into himself like that. 

Kagami elected the path of discretion and claimed the kitchen as his refuge. 

There was really nothing else he could do but bear witness—and maybe one other thing.

 _We made it to Prague_ , he typed to Imayoshi, carefully, regretting every character. _We found the last person we know to have been in contact with the Tomcat. Momoi is preparing to find out what he knows._

Imayoshi replied far more quickly than Taiga had wanted him to. _Who?_

Kagami watched Momoi lay out one syringe and select another. _Um. Momoi said his name was Kise. From Kaijou. I think._

Approximately thirty seconds after he sent that, Taiga heard the muffled sound of Momoi's phone ringing. 

She carried on with what she was doing, loading the second syringe from a tiny vial and tapping it to dislodge any air bubbles, and let the call go to voice mail.

Then Kuroko's phone began ringing. He didn't move to answer it, either. Taiga wasn't entirely sure he'd even heard it.

Finally, his own phone rang. Taiga wondered whether he could get away with claiming that he'd had the ringer on silent, once the reckoning came due, and then answered. "Yes, sir?"

"Did I or did I not tell you to limit the damage?" Imayoshi demanded. Taiga winced. "Put me on speaker."

Taiga sighed and toggled the speaker on, announcing, "The boss wants to talk to you," as he did.

The speaker turned Imayoshi's voice tinny, but his anger came through loud and clear. "The boss wants to strangle the whole lot of you. None of you are sane on the subject of Aomine, I recognize that—" Taiga wanted to protest that one, he really did, but he decided that it was better not to single himself out for attention just at the moment. "—but you cannot kidnap and interrogate one of Kaijou's people. Turn him loose right now and get yourselves back on that jet, or so help me—"

Kuroko plucked the phone out of Taiga's hand. "No," he said, right before he dropped it and brought his heel down on the screen. 

Taiga slumped as his last link to the world of sane people died with a pathetic crunching sound. "You're going to replace that, right?"

"Don't ask stupid questions." Kuroko turned to Momoi. "Are you ready?"

Momoi began rolling up Kise's sleeve. "Whenever you are."

 

 

Ryouta came to with a dry mouth and an ache in his elbow that told him he'd been drugged even before memory came filtering back to him—running into Momoi, who'd said she had come to round Aomine up, accepting that at face value (Momoi had been managing Aomine in just such a fashion for as long as he'd known either of them), the sting of betrayal and the fuzzy memory of men in masks… That made sense of the way his hands were tied behind him, to a wooden chair by the feel of it. The classics never did go out of style.

"He's awake." Male, soft-spoken, curt, and utterly certain despite the fact that Ryouta was an _excellent_ actor even if he did say so for himself.

Ryouta kept his muscles relaxed and his breathing slow and steady anyway, declining to give anything away before he had to, busy trying to gather what intelligence he could with his eyes closed while his mind moved fast, trying to figure out what sort of game Touou thought it was playing. Kaijou and Touou were the closest things to allies that anyone ever got, considering the nature of the world, so _why_ had Momoi set him up? Aomine hadn't given any sign that they were about to be at war, and Aomine wasn't even half the liar he'd need to be to conceal something like that from him—

The other part of Ryouta's brain, the one that had been busily cataloging what he could of his present circumstances (a fairly small, enclosed space, not much in the way of echoes—based on the shape of the chair and the creak of floorboards, he guessed they were in a room, perhaps in a flat, probably in the kitchen, with two or three other people) took note of the near-silent movement of a body through space, the cat-soft scuff of shoe leather and the whisper of cloth brushing against cloth. Then someone hit him, an open-handed slap that knocked Ryouta's head back and cut the inside of his cheek against his teeth and filled his mouth with the taste of his own blood.

That was data, too, and told him that this wasn't going to be fun. "Stop pretending." The same voice as before, accompanied by a hand fisted in Ryouta's hair, yanking his head back and holding it in place.

Ryouta weighed his options and opened his eyes since it sounded like Touou was feeling downright serious.

He'd been right: it was a kitchen, peeling paint and worn, shabby linoleum, and there were people looking back at him: Momoi, terrifyingly businesslike, a bulky redhead wearing a resigned expression, and a second man, much slighter and strikingly fair. He was the one with his fist in Ryouta's hair, and the utter lack of expression on his face put a chill down Ryouta's spine. 

Okay. Okay, this was going to be rough. Ryouta pulled his eyes away from small, superbly dressed, and lethal and looked to Momoi. "Momoicchi," he said, reproaching her in as friendly a fashion as he could, considering the blood in his mouth and the hand that was gripping his hair tightly enough to bring the water to his eyes. "If you had wanted to talk, all you had to do was say so."

When her expression didn't so much as flicker, Ryouta felt the cold creep down his spine again, and stay there this time. He wet his lips and glanced around at the three of them. "To what do I owe the honor?"

The hand in his hair twisted abruptly, hard enough that Ryouta could feel hair coming out by the roots, but that was a relatively small thing compared to the way his captor hauled his head back and leaned close to say, "Where. Is. Daiki?"

"What?" Ryouta asked, honestly confused. 

More of his hair parted company from his scalp then as the guy yanked harder. "Where is he?"

Ryouta yelped. "I don't know!"

Whoever had declared that honesty was always the best policy had never dealt with this guy. "I think you're lying," he said with terrifying calm, right before he hit Ryouta again. In other circumstances Ryouta might have appreciated the surgical precision of the blow, the way the guy held his head so that his jaw took the full weight of his fist, almost but not quite enough to break bone. Certainly it loosened a few teeth. "Let's try again. Where is he?"

Ryouta spat out a mouthful of blood, not particularly inclined to keep from missing that lovely suit, as the picture began to come together for him. Momoi hadn't been lying to him after all, not entirely. Not that it mattered very much just now. "I don't know. I saw him a couple days ago. We spent a few hours talking—" The guy's eyes went narrow and hard, and Ryouta decided to clarify since Aomine was the Tomcat, after all. " _Just_ talking. We had some wine and caught up on things, then we went our separate ways. I haven't seen him since and that's all I know." The urge to keep talking was strong; Momoi's doing, presumably. Ryouta pressed his lips together and probed a loose tooth with his tongue instead. The pain made as good a distraction as anything else.

"Kuroko," Momoi said before the guy could hit him again. He paused; Momoi took her phone out. "Perhaps you can explain this for us," she said. She pressed a button and Aomine's voice filled the room, tinny and cheerful, asking Momoi to look into why Ryouta might have warned him to watch his back—ah. That didn't sound good at all. "Well, Kise?" she said once the recording had ended.

Ryouta took a breath. "I don't know where he is and I don't know who has him. Kaijou doesn't have anything to do with this, I swear. The boss wouldn't stand for it—Momoicchi, you know he wouldn't, you're Imayoshi's favorite way to torment the boss so you know what he's like." God only knew if the appeal to friendlier times and her expertise would help, but any port in a storm. "I swear, if I were going to go after either of you, I'd do it face to face. For old time's sake, if nothing else."

"Answer the question," Kuroko said while Ryouta held Momoi's gaze as earnestly as he knew how.

Ryouta grimaced. "I don't _know_ ," he said. "It was instinct, okay? I know what his job is, and I don't know, it seemed like a good thing to say—" Though now that he thought about it, maybe there was more. "People have been talking about Touou lately, more than usual. They say that Imayoshi's got the Ghost working for him now, too, and no one really knows what that means or what Imayoshi is up to, and I know Aomine's always had a _thing_ about the Ghost, his eternal deathless rivalry or whatever, he's obsessed, seriously, it's honestly pretty funny…" Big and burly, who hadn't said anything so far, looked like he was tempted to smile. Maybe he was the Ghost…? Momoi certainly would employ the best available allies if she was going to take the world apart looking for Aomine. "That's all I know, I swear."

Kuroko didn't show any sign of whether he believed Ryouta or not; neither did Momoi for that matter, which was probably a terrible sign since that really _was_ all he knew.

Possibly-the-Ghost cleared his throat before Kuroko could hit him again. "I think he's telling the truth."

"But is he telling all of it?" Kuroko countered.

"I really am," Ryouta volunteered, just in case it helped. "I could tell you all about the Venice Incident, and Momoicchi _knows_ I swore I'd never talk about Venice again after it was all over." What was dignity when compared to breathing, anyway?

There. He had Momoi in his corner now. She was frowning, the shadow of disappointment in her eyes. 

Kuroko didn't seem to be swayed. "I don't care about Venice. I want to know where Daiki is."

"So do I," Ryouta said, surprising himself as much as the three of them. "Let me help find him. Or whoever it is who got him." They all stared at him. "What? I _liked_ Aominecchi, even though he couldn't dress worth a damn."

Kuroko turned loose of him abruptly and stalked out of the room without another word. Maybe-the-Ghost winced. Momoi made a move, almost as though she wanted to go after Kuroko. Maybe-the-Ghost shook his head, no. "Let him have a minute. Get himself together."

"So is that the boyfriend Aominecchi was talking about?" Ryouta asked, since whatever Momoi had shot him up with meant he couldn't keep his damned mouth shut. "I guess Aominecchi wasn't kidding when he said that his boyfriend would kill him if he slept with me."

Something went _smash_ in the other room, rather impressively from the sound of it. Maybe-the-Ghost winced. "No offense, but he'd probably have started with you first."

"Oh, because _that_ sounds like a healthy relationship dynamic," Ryouta said before he could stop himself. But then, Aomine had seemed happy enough—had even seemed sort of sentimental talking about his boyfriend, probably without even realizing he'd been doing it. "Too bad, I guess. Aominecchi seemed really happy." Settled, somehow, indefinably so. Ryouta sighed and gave Momoi the most sorrowful look he could muster. "You _are_ going to let me help, aren't you? For old times' sake?"

" _Seriously_?" Maybe-the-Ghost asked. "We abducted you, drugged you, tied you to a kitchen chair, and let Kuroko knock you around, and you're offering to help?"

"Pfft." Ryouta shrugged as best as he could, given the circumstances. "I've had wilder first dates."

Maybe-the-Ghost stared at him and then looked at Momoi. She had pressed her lips together so tightly that they'd gone white, and she stared at Ryouta like she thought she'd be able to see through to his soul if she just looked hard enough. 

"Please?" Ryouta wheedled. "If you let me help, I won't tell the boss about this whole sordid little mistake."

That hit home with Maybe-the-Ghost, who winced again—how on earth did he get away with being so easily read, anyway?

"What makes you think you'll be any use to us?" Kuroko had returned so quietly that none of them had even noticed.

"That's just _hurtful_ ," Ryouta said, indignant. "Even if you _do_ have the Ghost _and_ Momoicchi working on this, I know _everybody_. And I'm just as good as Aominecchi was."

Kuroko was not as impressed by this as he should have been, but he exchanged glances with Momoi. She said, "An extra set of hands wouldn't hurt. He is good in a tight spot, believe it or not."

Ryouta wanted to know what that was supposed to mean, and even said so, but they all ignored him. Kuroko frowned and said, "Fine." He cut a cold glance Ryouta's way. "If you're lying, I'll kill you. And just for the record, you _don't_ know everybody, because _I'm_ the Ghost." He pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the room while Ryouta was still opening and shutting his mouth soundlessly. "Aominecchi was stupid in love with the _Ghost_?" he demanded of Momoi. "How in the hell did _that_ happen?"

Momoi didn't say anything; she was following after Kuroko—the freaking _Ghost_ , oh man, whoever it was who'd taken Aomine down was in for a whole world of hurt—which left Not-the-Ghost-After-All to sigh and come over to cut him loose. "It's a really long story," he said as Ryouta began rubbing the feeling back into his hands. He produced a first aid kit that included wet wipes, which Ryouta promptly applied to his bloodied mouth and chin. "Sorry that we kidnapped you, it was just that you were the only lead we had." He made a face, rueful, while he cracked a cold pack and handed it over. "Can I just say how glad I am that I'm not going to be the only sane person in the room now?"

Ryouta held the cold pack to his bruised jaw, digesting all that. It was true, the guy did seem to have his head on straighter than either Momoi or Kuroko did at the moment. "Strength in numbers," he agreed. "Who the heck are you, anyway?"

The guy snorted. "Sorry. Kagami Taiga." He offered his hand. "Sorry about the circumstances."

Ryouta shook his hand, filing that away—so this was the bombs expert, interesting. "Yeah, well, you know what they say, old hitman is an oxymoron. It's just too bad Aominecchi's luck ran out so soon." He smiled at Kagami, knowing it wasn't his nice smile and that there was still blood in his teeth. "But we'll make whoever did it awfully sorry before we're through, won't we?"

Kagami suddenly looked as though he was wondering about the total number of sane people in the room after all, but to be fair, Ryouta couldn't really blame him for that.

 

 

After the untimely demise of his previous phone, Taiga had wondered whether Kuroko was going to let him have any contact with the world of sane people. However, once it had been settled that they really were going to let Kise invite himself along on their mission of vengeance (almost certainly not a rescue mission anymore, if it ever had been to begin with), Kuroko tossed his phone at Taiga. He caught it and raised his eyebrows. "What's this for?"

"You may as well tell him to stop panicking." Kuroko's voice was as perfectly even as ever, but Taiga couldn't shake the sense that it was bleak, too. Well. He still didn't know what the heck Kuroko had seen in Aomine, but he'd seen something. He was entitled to be bleak if he wanted to be.

"This doesn't count as a replacement, just for the record," Taiga told him, since Kuroko used cheap burner phones exclusively, never longer than a week at a time.

Kuroko didn't say anything; he turned and ghosted back over to where Momoi and Kise had their heads bent close together, the latter chattering away in spite of the ice pack he was holding to his jaw.

Taiga signed and dialed Imayoshi's number from memory as he headed to the back room and shut the door to at least pretend he had the illusion of propriety. "Hi, Boss," he said when Imayoshi answered, curt. "It's me. Do you want the good news first?"

A few seconds ticked past, like Imayoshi was genuinely considering the question. Or bracing himself, maybe. At last he sighed. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Well… I guess it really is good news?" Geez, he couldn't even make that sound convincing to himself. 

He heart quiet sounds echo across the connection; with just a little imagination, he could identify them as the sound of ice clinking against glass and the gurgle of a drink being poured. Then Imayoshi said, "All right, I believe I've braced myself sufficiently. Tell me."

"Right." Taiga eyed the sagging mattress in the corner and elected to stand to the side of the grimy window instead. "Kise says he's not going to mention any of this to Kasamatsu. So that's the good news."

"And the bad news?" 

Taiga thought about the way Kise had smiled, blood on his teeth, and sighed. "So did you know that Kise's also slept with the Tomcat? Because he's also crazy and wants to help. And neither of them turned him down."

"Oh, _damn_ ," Imayoshi said right before Taiga heard him taking a long drink. Taiga couldn't blame him for it; he kind of wanted a drink himself.

He wandered back out to the other room after Imayoshi had reiterated his request to report in regularly and to _please_ not let Kuroko and Momoi kidnap any more of their business partners' people. "I think you're going to give him a drinking problem," he announced as he tossed the phone at Kuroko's head.

Kuroko caught it without looking up from the maps that the three of them had pulled up on their laptops—Sakurai had sent them the coordinates of Aomine's phone's last transmission and Kise appeared to be discussing the logistics of the area. 

"Don't be silly, Kagamin, if he was susceptible to that kind of thing, he'd have developed a drinking problem a long time ago." Momoi's tone was absent. "If not when Dai-chan and I went to work for him, then certainly when you and Kuroko came on board."

Kise looked up from the maps, eyes bright. His jaw was definitely turning purple, but at least he'd rinsed his mouth out and no longer looked completely feral. "About that. We've all been dying to know why that happened—"

"It's irrelevant," Kuroko said. He planted his finger on the map and measured the distance between where it rested and where his thumb was. "It's only a few streets away from here."

Kise pouted at being rebuffed but didn't let that keep him from pointing out a third spot. "This is where we split up." He tapped his finger against the screen. "They must have been watching for their chance. It was still early, still plenty of traffic on the streets. If no one saw them, they had to have taken their moment when they saw it."

Momoi bit her lip, though Taiga could have told her that anyone could have read her expression for what it said—that she thought she should have been their to watch Aomine's back. "Video footage?" she said, voice steady.

"There might be," Kise said. He brightened perceptibly and looked at the three of them before saying, "I'm going to need some concealer and a partner. Kagamicchi, how good are you when it comes to acting?"

"Good enough," Kagami said, catching his drift. He glanced Kuroko's way. "Kuroko?"

Kuroko almost didn't seem to have heard him or the question—were they going to follow Kise's lead?—but then he looked up and nodded. "Alex?"

That was a good point; she might have something by now. Kagami held out his hand. "Phone. I'll give her a call." 

Kuroko lobbed the phone back to him while Momoi dragged the laptop over. "Local law enforcement or…?"

Kise pursed his lips. "Either will work," he said. "I'll leave it to your excellent judgment."

Kagami retreated back to the bedroom and dialed Alex's number. She sounded surprised when he identified himself. "Did you change your phone again already, kiddo?"

"No, my phone just… had an accident." 

"Oh, of course. I see." Alex sounded much to knowing about that, but hell, he and Kuroko had been working together for a while. She'd heard the stories about Kuroko in a snit. She allowed a moment to pass and then switched gears. "I have a line on some traffic footage. Have you narrowed the search radius yet?"

"Mm, yeah, actually." Taiga rattled off the coordinates they'd gotten from Sakurai. "We're going to go door-to-door for witnesses and security footage."

Alex hummed. "It's a starting point." She paused. "Nobody has contacted you about a ransom, I suppose."

"Are you kidding, they'd have to _pay me_ to take him back." At least if it were strictly up to him and didn't involve Kuroko or Momoi's crazy eyes. "Haven't heard a word."

"That's what's so strange," Alex said. "I haven't heard anything either. And we're approaching forty-eight hours. I would have expected something by now. Gloating, if nothing else. But there hasn't been _anything_. I even asked your brother—"

"Jesus Christ, what did you go and do that for?" Taiga demanded, appalled. " _Alex!_ "

"Don't Alex me, kiddo, you said I could pull out the stops so I did." She sounded more amused than anything else. "Stop freaking out, I didn't tell him why I was asking. Didn't do any good, anyway, he couldn't find anything about the Tomcat either, aside from the usual, so I think we can assume that this wasn't an arrest. Not that I thought it was, the Tomcat isn't the one who gets himself mixed up in politics, no one's going to want to disappear _him_."

Taiga rolled his eyes, aggravated. Make one teeny tiny miscalculation choosing sides and the woman never forgot it. "I can't believe you dragged Tatsuya into this, Alex, you know he said he was going straight."

"I know that he said he wanted to go straight," Alex said, dry. "It doesn't matter, like I said. He didn't know anything and couldn't find anything, and last time I checked he still knew how to say no to me. I did tell him you said hello, and he sends his love."

"That's not funny, Alex." Taiga rubbed his forehead. "That's not even your best work."

"No, but I thought that maybe it was worth trying one of the classics," she said, unperturbed. "You can't blame me for giving it a shot."

"Oh yes I can," Taiga said grimly, and dimly heard the ring of laughter through the closed door—Kise. Which reminded him. "Tell me about Kise, from Kaijou."

"Kasamatsu's favorite enforcer," Alex said promptly, not missing a beat as he changed topics. "Extremely versatile, particularly for infiltration. Probably should have been an actor or a model, but since he has a knack for whatever he tries and fell in with Kaijou first, he went that route instead. Why do you ask?"

"Guess who slept with the Tomcat and is sentimental about it?"

Alex laughed. "You have to be impressed, don't you? It's amazing the Tomcat ever got anything done while he was fucking his way around the globe."

" _I_ think it's amazing that he didn't give Kuroko a venereal disease, honestly." Taiga shook his head. "Send that footage along when you get it. I've got to go make sure they aren't getting out of hand."

"Be careful, Taiga," Alex said, going serious on him. "I don't know who's behind this yet, but I think it must be a major player. There would be ripples otherwise—you know what I mean?"

Taiga sighed. "Yeah. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I'll be careful."

"Do that," Alex said. "If the Ghost loses his partner, too, I don't think the results would be very pretty. And I'd miss you. So would your brother."

" _Goodbye_ , Alex." Taiga ended the call with a decisive jab of his finger. Alex wouldn't be Alex if she didn't push at boundaries, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

He returned to the other three to report what little he'd learned from Alex—"Wait, you mean Alex _Garcia_?" Kise said, starry-eyed. "And she just tells you things?" 

"And she doesn't even charge her usual mark-up," Taiga told him, since it was only fair to rub it in—and concluded with her warning, suitably edited for their ears. "I trust her instincts. If she thinks one of the big boys is behind this, she's probably right."

Kuroko's expression didn't even flicker, staying still and composed, but at least Momoi frowned, a little bit thoughtful, before saying, "That would narrow the field considerably. Once we review the footage…"

That assumed there would be footage, but Taiga didn't bother saying so. They needed there to be footage, some scrap of a clue, so there would be. If the universe had any sense of justice, it wouldn't deny them a chance to find out what had happened to Aomine, or deny Kuroko his vengeance. He had to hold onto that hope, if only because he wasn't ready for the world to end just yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually Our Heroes track down Aomine's kidnappers about the same time Aomine is getting lose and collective havoc is wrought upon said kidnappers. Imayoshi would complain about all of this except that he ends up inheriting a good parcel of territory, so in the end he just snarks a little.


	5. Kuroko no Basuke: Mr & Mrs Smith Take a Honeymoon (AoKuro)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where hitmen Aomine and Kuroko get hitched and wreak some havoc on their honeymoon.

After everything was said and done—vows spoken and rings exchanged, embarrassing toasts made and threats delivered, champagne drunk and cake consumed—after all that nonsense, Daiki divested himself of his jacket and his tie, undid the top couple of buttons of his shirt, and sprawled low in his seat. "Thank fuck _that's_ over."

Tetsu glanced at him. "If you didn't want to do it, you should have said something a little sooner."

"Oh, please, like there was any stopping them once they got the idea into their heads." Kagami was an evil motherfucker when he wanted to be and Satsuki just _enabled him_ in his evil motherfuckery and Imayoshi thought the whole thing was hilarious and therefore had chosen not to intervene.

Tetsu pursed his lips slightly and then inclined his head, accepting the point. "They were very determined, weren't they?"

"They're assholes," Daiki said. "All of them."

"And yet you didn't fight them very hard, did you?" Tetsu said. He tipped his head, laying one of his sharpest looks on Daiki, the kind that went right to the core of him. "Second thoughts?"

Daiki glanced at the band on his left hand, currently uncomfortably unfamiliar, though that probably wouldn't last too long. "Nah. I just think we should've said fuck it and eloped."

"And deprive ourselves of the chance to enjoy our honeymoon? Perish the thought."

Tetsu's deadpan was a thing of joy; Daiki grinned at him and glanced out the limousine's tinted windows. At least Imayoshi knew how to do a thing properly. "I guess there's that." And that gave him an idea. "Sooooo."

Tetsu watched him slide out of his seat and cross the space between their seats. "So?" he asked even as he was spreading his knees wider to let Daiki crawl between them.

Daiki grinned up at Tetsu as he reached for his fly, undoing it. "So I hear there are certain things that happen on honeymoons." He dipped his fingers inside Tetsu's fly and drew his cock out, warm and sleek against the pads of his fingers and already beginning to respond.

"So there are," Tetsu murmured, reaching down to him and carding his fingers through Daiki's hair.

Daiki grinned and let the weight of Tetsu's hand press him down, opening his mouth and sucking Tetsu's cock between his lips. Tetsu made a low sound above him as Daiki lapped at the head of him, stroking his tongue over velvet-soft skin and humming at the way Tetsu's cock hardened and filled his mouth. Tetsu stroked restless fingers through his hair, breathing faster and deeper, and groaned as Daiki bent his head lower, taking him deeper and then swallowing him down. Daiki hummed back to him, kneading his fingers against Tetsu's thighs, his senses filled with the scent and taste of Tetsu, the weight of Tetsu's cock heavy on his tongue and the husky rasp of Tetsu's voice saying his name and the way Tetsu looked, all but melting into his seat as he rolled his hips up, fucking Daiki's throat. That really was enough to make up for all the stupid fuss that it had taken to get to this point, so Daiki sucked harder, more drunk on Tetsu than the champagne could ever have gotten him, until Tetsu tightened his fingers in his hair and bucked up against him, groaning as he came down Daiki's throat in quick, hot pulses.

Daiki settled back on his heels, satisfied with a job well done and the obscene way Tetsu had gone lax in his seat, still perfectly done up in his tuxedo except for the hectic flush of his cheeks and the lewd way his cock was hanging out of his fly. "I think I could get to like this honeymoon thing."

Tetsu gave him one of his rare smiles, small and faint and true. "It has its charms."

Before Daiki could reply, maybe suggest a further exploration of those charms, the intercom crackled and the driver interrupted them, rather pointedly. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but we will be arriving at the airport in approximately five minutes." 

Daiki glanced towards the partition separating them from the driver. "Guess I'll wait for my turn."

"We could tell him to take another turn around the city, if you like," Tetsu offered. 

Daiki considered it—he did—but chose to crawl up onto Tetsu's seat and kiss him instead. "Nah, I'll wait. You'll make it worth my while."

"Yes," Tetsu said, curling his fingers into Daiki's hair again. "I suppose I'll have to do my best."

Daiki didn't suppose a man could ask any more than that, so really, the fact that Imayoshi's wedding gift ended up including a joint job for the two of them was only gravy on top of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this actually got posted on Tumblr at one point, but I'd had intentions of actually writing more about the honeymoon and the joint job... which was going to involve the Vongola and the Varia and lots of wacky hijinks. Plus, you know, porn.


	6. Katekyo Hitman Reborn: What it means to be the Sky (Tsuna/Everyone)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being the Sky means you end up sleeping with your Family. All of your Family (but usually not all at the same time).

Basically nothing in Tsuna's life is what he expected it to be back when he was still a child and would daydream what life as an adult would be. But then, there was a time when he wanted to be a giant robot, so maybe that's just as well, even if growing up to be a robot is only slightly less plausible than what it is he's ended up doing.

There are things about being a Sky that are more complicated than Tsuna ever imagined they would be when Reborn walked into his life and told him he was going to become a mafia boss. Some of them Reborn explained, or warned him about when they weren't the kind of thing that could be explained, but some of them he left for Tsuna to find out about on his own.

But give credit where credit is due: Reborn did warn him that sex would be complicated. Even more complicated than it is for normal people, and Tsuna guesses that's plenty complicated. And sex is sex and doesn't even get into the question of love.

(Reborn says that a mafia boss has no business falling in love, but from what Tsuna has observed, that's a rule honored more in the breach than not. Also, Reborn is full of shit sometimes.)

And Tsuna does love, which is part of being a Sky and is maybe just part of being who he is. He loves more deeply and more broadly than he ever thought he could, and more easily than is always easy to bear. 

 

 

He loves Kyouko first, before Reborn ever walks into his life to tell him that he's going to be a mafia boss. It's a boy's love, perhaps, barely more than a child's love, but it's no less sweet for that. Tsuna passes long hours of his life before Reborn thinking about Kyouko, dreaming about the soft pink curve of her smile and the way her fingers look threading through the brightness of her hair when she tucks it behind her ear. That alone is enough to fluster him. He barely dares to think of the slim curve of her calves beneath the neat white socks she wears or the paler skin that sometimes shows when a breeze tosses the pleats of her skirt askew, let alone the swell of her chest. 

After Reborn, Tsuna has a lot less time to think about Kyouko, what with the sudden violent wrench in his plans for his life and the way people keep trying to kill him and he keeps somehow not dying and all. On the other hand, constant threats to life and limb have a marvelous ability to concentrate the attention wonderfully. And so Kyouko becomes something like a talisman to him, a symbol of the life he'd had before Reborn, the person he'd been then, and when he thinks about her after Reborn, his thoughts limn her with the rosy glow of veneration, setting her apart as something almost too pure to think about often, but no less cherished for that.

 

 

Haru is part of Tsuna's life with Reborn and the mafia right from the first. She's also the first person Tsuna ever has sex with, because like everything else she does, Haru doesn't wait around for someone else to decide what was going to happen and takes matters into her own hands instead. She contrives to separate Tsuna from Yamamoto and Gokudera one afternoon during their first year in high school and brings him home to her family's empty house on the pretext of wanting to talk to him about something important. She leads him upstairs to her bedroom and takes off her blouse and bra before Tsuna even realizes what she's doing. "I want to sleep with you," she says while he stammers and sputters and tries not to stare at her (but it's difficult, so difficult, to tear his eyes away from her bare skin and the shape of her breasts, so different from the pen and ink drawings in the dirty manga that the guys pass around). Her voice is very steady. "I know I'm not your first choice, but you're my first choice. I want it to be you. Please."

Haru is strange and at least a little crazy for wanting to be a part of the mafia and sometimes—most of the time—Tsuna doesn't even know what to make of her, but he falls a little in love with her right then for how determined she sounds, how very sure she is even though she sounds a little sad and resigned, too. It speaks to him, or the part of him that is the Vongola Tenth and the Sky, and all of a sudden it's a lot easier to look at her face instead of her chest. "Haru," he says, softly. "Are you sure?"

She lifts her chin. "Of course I'm sure," she says, tone cross enough to surprise a laugh out of him. "Do you think I do this with all the boys?"

"No," Tsuna says, because of course she doesn't, and he looks at her, wondering a little at her choice. 

She tosses her head and crosses her arms over her breasts as she looks aside. Her cheeks are just a little bit pinker than usual. "So? Will you?"

"Yes," Tsuna says. "If you really want it to be me." Then the honesty that Reborn despairs of forces him to add, "But—you know—I haven't. Before. Um."

Haru glances at him then, practically shy even though shy really isn't her thing, with a tiny, private sort of smile hovering on her lips. "That's okay," she says. "We can figure it out together."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, basically this was just going to be Tsuna/everyone else. It just never came together. As it were.


	7. Kuroko no Basuke: Pacific Rim AU (AoKuro)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How Aomine and Kuroko learned to Drift and also kick kaiju ass.

There are moments when something so momentous, so monumental, begins to happen that the human mind recognizes their significance even before events have played themselves out. Sometimes these moments herald world-shattering events: ask anyone where they were when the first kaiju made landfall in San Francisco and kicked off the war, and they'll be able to say exactly where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. It was the kind of event that arrests the attention, reaches into the soul and seizes it with the certain knowledge that nothing will ever be the same again.

Aomine Daiki was asleep in his bed when the first kaiju crashed through the Golden Gate Bridge, but he didn't stay that way for very long—he could not have said how the news reached Satsuki, whether it followed the path from an all-night newscast to the ears of a bored clerk working the graveyard shift and listening to the news, who turned up the volume and attracted the attention of a customer who'd only meant to pick up a bento to soak up the booze in his stomach, who made a call to a friend as he listened and demanded that they turn on the news to verify what he was hearing, and this friend then rousing her lover to watch the news with her—and so on and so on, until Satsuki picked up her phone and called him, three times before Daiki finally found his phone and demanded to know what she wanted.

He remembered the way her voice trembled in his ear until his dying day, shaking as she commanded him to turn on his television. He obeyed her and sat with the phone pressed against his ear, watching the world change with the sound of Satsuki's breathing in his ear, quick and scared. Because it was Satsuki, who knew all his secrets as he knew hers, Daiki didn't mind admitting to her that he was scared, too.

There are other times when the moment of change, though monumental, is a more private thing, confined in its scope—the tragedy that changes the shape of a family forever, the unlooked-for windfall that changes a person's path and sends her destiny spinning off in a new direction. Daiki had already experienced one such moment in his life, though he hadn't recognized its significance at the time: he'd been seven years old, a stranger in the middle of a crowd of new classmates who were all watching him, not sure whether they wanted to welcome him or not.

At first it had seemed like they wouldn't—his Japanese was still accented then, not fluent yet, and even at that young age, he'd had a pugnacious attitude. That was all it really needed, and Daiki for one was not terribly surprised when the hostilities broke out almost immediately, requiring no more provocation on his part than to attempt to take possession of an empty space at the art table. He was, however, taken aback by the fact that when the scuffle began (something to do with possession of the colored chalks), there were only a few punches thrown (inexpertly, he noted with scorn) before someone said, "You leave him alone!" and he found himself with two unexpected allies.

That was how he met Momoi Satsuki and Kuroko Tetsuya, and they sealed their friendship in the blood of their vanquished foes on that day. (Haizaki's nose had bled _very_ freely.)

 

 

In some ways, Daiki thought, never without a certain guilty twist in his conscience, the kaiju were good for some things. Before San Francisco, he'd been slowly failing out of university, uninterested in studying or attending class despite Satsuki's best efforts to get him to care, and looking down the barrel of a future loaded with terminal tedium. It wasn't Satsuki's fault, Daiki knew that. The problem lay within him, in the absence of any desire for the kinds of things she cared about or any real passion of his own. He'd only barely passed his entrance exams, and that had been thanks to her efforts and not even the fact that his mother had cried with pride could quite overcome Daiki's exhaustion with school and the prospect of a lifetime of pushing papers around a desk. There had to be more to life than that, he knew there had to be.

"If there is," Satsuki told him, tart as lemon juice, some two weeks before San Francisco, "I don't think you're going to find it at the bottom of a beer can or in bed."

She was probably right about that, Daiki knew, because Satsuki was rarely ever wrong. The only problem was that he just couldn't bring himself to care, and at least beer and fucking were more fun than going to class.

Then San Francisco happened, and everything changed.

"Dai-chan," Satsuki said, about a month after San Francisco, after the smoke had finally stopped rising from the rubble and the long process of identifying and memorializing all the dead had barely begun. She peered at him worriedly, chewing on her lip. "Dai-chan, what are you doing?"

By which, Daiki knew, she meant, _You've changed_ and _I'm worried about you_ and _Just tell me what you're doing so I can help_. 

On his desk, dust lay thicker than ever over his textbooks, but his fridge didn't have any beer in it these days, and his phone had stopped ringing with the calls from what Satsuki had once acidly named _the usual suspects_.

Daiki continued to do his push-ups, counting off the set silently while his chest and arm muscles screamed, and thought about how he could answer her while he finished the set up. He levered himself up for the last time, and then sat up, sitting cross-legged on the floor and wiping the sweat from his face with the tail of his t-shirt. Satsuki looked down at him from where she sat on the foot of his bed, her knees tucked against her chest while she gnawed on her lower lip and watched him. He took a breath. "San Francisco," he said. "When it happens again, I'm going to be ready."

She sucked in a breath. "They say it won't happen again." Wherever that thing, the kaiju, had come from, there were no signs that it had had any friends.

Daiki snorted. "You really believe that?" He sure as hell didn't—nothing that big came out of nothing. He had enough education to know that much, at least, and no amount of official soothing could persuade him otherwise. By the look in her eyes, Satsuki knew that as well as he did. "It's gonna happen again. And when it does, I'm gonna be ready."

Satsuki closed her eyes for a moment, almost like she was praying. When she opened them again, she nodded, decisive. "All right," she said. "I'll help."

She went to the university's registrar the very next day to begin the process of switching her field of study from business to engineering and design while Daiki waited and continued to train. And she was there after Manila, when it happened again, and told him, "I'll follow after you, just as soon as I graduate," when Daiki went to enlist in the newly formed Pan Pacific Defense Corps.

Daiki grinned at her, pretending that he wasn't just as afraid as she was, and told her, "I know you will."

 

 

When Daiki was fourteen, one of his best friends moved away. Looking back at it after the fact, Daiki was a little—okay, a lot—ashamed of how poorly he took the news that Tetsu's father had accepted a promotion and a transfer, and that the entire family was upping stakes and leaving. It wasn't Tetsu's fault, not that his father's employer had given them so very little notice or the fact that they were relocating the family from Tokyo to somewhere in Hokkaido, and certainly not the fact that Daiki had lately found himself prey to certain lingering, disquieting thoughts centered upon Tetsu's person—complicated thoughts of the kind that had Daiki learning how to do his own laundry so that he could change his sheets whenever the necessity arose. None of that was really Tetsu's fault or his responsibility, but that didn't stop Daiki from holding it against him anyway. Being angry with Tetsu for leaving seemed easier than dealing with the fact that he was going and the sudden gap Daiki could see looming up in his life, and it was certainly easier than figuring out how to muddle his way through the way his stomach clenched up whenever he though about Tetsu's face or the delicate bones of his wrists, the sight of which gave Daiki the preposterous desire to find out how they would taste beneath his tongue if he happened to dwell too long on them. Being angry seemed easier, even if Satsuki yelled at him for being a stupid jerk and the last Daiki saw of Tetsu was the puzzled, hurt look on his face as Daiki stomped away from him, irrationally upset that one of his touchstones was deserting him. By the time Daiki figured out that anger wasn't any easier after all, that it burned out and then left nothing but a sick, guilty shame in its wake, it was too late. Tetsu was long gone, and there was not getting him back. (That was what Daiki assumed at the time, and he was too proud to correct that. But he didn't realize it till long afterwards.)

 

 

"But what good do you think you can do?" his mother asked in despair when Daiki declared his intentions. Daiki hadn't had an answer for her—not one he figured she would want to hear, at any rate—and so he shrugged and said vaguely that he figured the PPDC would probably figure something out. Truth was, he figured that they were going to need warm bodies to throw at the next lizard bastard kaiju, given how many aircraft and tanks it had taken to take the first two down. If that ended up being the case—at least he'd go out knowing that it had meant something. That was better than pushing paper around and waiting for the inevitable, but a man couldn't tell his own mother a thing like that. Not even he was as much of a jerk as that.

The PPDC might have been brand new, but Daiki sort of thought that _someone_ behind the scenes must have been thinking the same way he had, that San Francisco had only been a beginning, because he reported to the Tokyo base and found it was already an orderly bustle of activity. He wasn't the only one who'd seen what was coming, either: his cadet class was full of men and women thinking the same way he was, people from all walks of life and every age, short ones and tall ones, thin ones and fat ones, geeks and jocks and at least one guy whose face Daiki recognized from magazine ads, and him. Daiki submitted himself to having his hair buzzed short and surrendered his jeans and t-shirts for crisp PPDC blues and was assigned to a cadet bloc with nineteen other guys, and that was where he met Tetsu again, six years after he'd thought he'd lost him forever.

 

 

"The hell, Tetsu," Daiki said, which probably wasn't the most diplomatic way to greet the guy he hadn't seen in years. "When the hell did you get to be so short?" But he never had been very good at that kind of thing, so he might as well get all the awkward, stupid shit out of the way first.

Tetsu looked up at him, looking small and young beneath his close-cropped hair. He hadn't changed much; Daiki could see the flash of his irritation in the slight narrowing of his eyes and the flatness of his mouth. "I see that _you_ haven't changed at all."

Only the thing was, Daiki had, or the world had changed and made some things less important than they'd used to be. Maybe it was both. He ignored the frosty look in Tetsu's eyes and the fact that at least some of the other cadets in their bloc were watching and threw his arms around Tetsu. "Fuck, I missed you," he said while Tetsu went stiff and dangerously silent in his arms. He lowered his voice and pushed on before Tetsu could get any bright ideas about punching him in the ribs. "Sorry I was such an asshole back then."

Tetsu punched him in the ribs anyway, but when Daiki managed to stop clutching them and wheezing, he saw that Tetsu's expression had thawed out and that he was smiling. "Apology accepted," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason I didn't finish this one was because I realized that given the shape of Pacific Rim's canon, this was going to end in tragedy a la what happened with Yancey, and, well. I noped my way out.


	8. Voltron: Legendary Defender - failed run-up to From First Principles p3 (Shklance)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my first attempt at writing the third chapter of From First Principles. I wasn't happy with it and it didn't work properly, so I ended up starting over and we got the version that I ultimately published.

"So what do you think is going on?" Pidge asks, eyes hidden by the lenses reflecting the code on her computer's screen. 

Hunk doesn't ask what she means by that, since there's really only one thing that she might mean: Shiro and Keith and Lance. Something has changed there, for all that the three of them are behaving normally. Well, normally for them. Space lions and all that mean that they're all off the bubble by Earth standards at this point. Hunk looks down at his circuit board and says, "I really have no idea." 

Pidge looks up from her computer and raises her eyebrows. "Really."

Hunk grimaces. "Not really?" he tries.

Pidge sniffs and bends over her computer again. "Sure." She types a few lines, her fingers flying over the keyboard, and says, "I think Shiro finally figured out that they're fucking." She frowns at the screen, backspaces, and makes an adjustment to her code. "Told him that he didn't want to go in there."

That was nothing but the truth, since they'd both seen the kind of mood Lance and Keith had been in that afternoon and had cleared out so the two of them could get it out of their systems in as much privacy as any two paladins who insisted on flirting in the castle-ship's public spaces could hope for. 

Hunk picks up his soldering iron and bends over his circuit board, making a careful adjustment as he considers the way things have shifted in Shiro's dynamic with Keith and Lance, like he's more aware of them somehow. "It kind of looks that way." Which is interesting; as far as he or Pidge know, both Lance and Keith seem to think no one else was aware of how things had changed between them. Pidge still argues that they ought to burst that little bubble, but so far Hunk has been able to keep her from doing it, mostly by reminding her that people keep secrets for a reason, as she should very well know herself.

Yeah, it bugs him that Lance hasn't told _him_ yet, but Lance is weird about anything to do with Keith and always has been. For all Hunk knows, he's just too embarrassed that he's sleeping with his so-called eternal rival that he _can't_ bring himself to own up to it. Keith is more of a cipher; Hunk has about five different hypotheses for why he keeps his mouth shut. They range from _too embarrassed to admit he's sleeping with_ Lance _of all people_ to _genuinely hasn't occurred to him to say anything_ , which is Hunk's personal favorite.

Pidge hums to herself. "What do you think he said about it?"

Hunk thinks about that, about the way Shiro _is_ , and shrugs. "He probably congratulated them." Technically Lance and Keith are violating the regulations about intra-squad fraternization, but they're in space and it's not like one of them can put in a request for a transfer. And Shiro is only a stickler for the things that matter.

Pidge looks up again, her expression openly curious. "You think so?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, why not?"

Pidge shoots him a pitying look. "Keith," she says. "Him and Keith. You really think he just congratulated them and left them to it?"

Hunk blows out a breath, since that's the part of the equation he just can't figure out how to reconcile. Shiro and Keith have a thing that defies any sort of simple explanation, the kind of thing that had Keith self-destructing his way out of the Garrison academy after the Kerberos mission was lost, the kind of thing that means he had a change of clothes for Shiro out in his Hermit Shack of Crazy (Lance's descriptions can be so very apt). The kind of thing where Shiro talks to Keith in ways he doesn't with the rest of them, directs his jokes to him and shares silent glances only the two of them can decipher. Yeah, Shiro and Keith, they have a thing.

But it's Shiro.

Hunk looks at Pidge. "Yeah, I think he did."

Pidge screws up her face, mulling it over. "That's going to come back and bite us all in the ass, you know that, right?"

Hunk sighs. "Yeah, I know."

Pidge bends over her keyboard again. "Got any contingency plans yet?"

"No," Hunk admits. "Not yet."

"You might wanna get on that." 

"Yeah." Yeah, he really does, but it would certainly help to have some idea where to start.

 

 

Hunk thinks that whatever is going on with Keith and Lance and Shiro is going to work itself out, but Hunk is an optimist. He wants it all to work out, because Lance is his best friend and he likes Keith and looks up to Shiro, and because he wants to see the good in things. So does Pidge, but she just doesn't have it in her to assume that just because she likes all three of them and things all three of them are great guys, everything is going to be hunky-dory. She's seen the way Keith looks at Shiro sometimes, seen Lance watching Keith and Shiro sharing a moment together, a too-knowing look on his face, seen the way some part of Shiro has come awake since the day they'd tried to warn him away from the training deck. 

Good intentions and being good people can only go so far.

Pidge doesn't know what's going to happen, but these days it feels like she's holding her breath all the time, waiting for the axe to fall. 

She's almost relieved when she wanders around a corner and catches Keith with Shiro; at least the waiting is over.

Keith has Shiro backed up against the wall, is raised off his heels so he can plaster himself against the line of Shiro's body, and has his arms around Shiro's neck as they kiss. For his part, Shiro has his hands on Keith's ass, holding Keith right where he is.

There's no way Pidge can spin what she's seeing into anything but two willing participants in a cutthroat game of tonsil hockey.

She turns and walks away; a low, breathy kind of sound follows her—neither of them must have known she was even there.

It's a relief, but it's not. Pidge's stomach churns as she walks away from what she's seen. Her mouth tastes like iron. 

She hadn't thought Hunk would be right, but she's surprised to find out how much she'd been hoping he would be. 

Hunk isn't in the lab—he'd said he needed a kitchen break—so that's where Pidge goes. Hunk is there, one of the goo dispensers in pieces on the floor around him as he tinkers with it. He'd said he'd had an idea about textures, Pidge recalls. Certainly he looks intent on his work.

Pidge clears her throat. "Hunk."

"Hey," he says absently, peering into the guts of the machine and making some tiny adjustment to one of the components. "You decide you were hungry after all? You can be the first to try the new and improved space goo if you don't mind waiting about three minutes."

"No, I'm not hungry." Pidge sounds funny to herself; she must sound funny to Hunk, too. 

He looks up from his tinkering, sees her, and the smile falls off his face. "What happened?"

"I saw Keith and Shiro," Pidge tells him. "They were kissing."

Hunk doesn't ask her whether she's sure of what she saw, or if she might be mistaken, or anything like that. Some of the color leaves his face, turning it sickly—the way Pidge feels, actually. "Oh, no."

"I know." Pidge picks her way through the parts, careful not to disturb their order, and sits on the floor next to Hunk. He puts an arm around her and pulls her in against his side—Hunk gives the best hugs, even when he's upset. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know." Hunk sounds almost blank. When Pidge looks up at him, he's got his jaw set. He looks—angry. 

Well. Lance _is_ his best friend. And Lance… has been in a really good mood lately, so cheerful that it's obnoxious, so happy that Pidge has banned him from her lab on sheer principle. It's been annoying, sure, but Pidge doesn't actually want to see it go away. "Should we… tell him?"

Hunk's jaw tightens even further; after a second, he shakes his head _no_ and begins picking up the pieces of the dispenser and slotting them back into place. "First I'm going to talk to them."

Pidge eyes him, a little alarmed. "Talk?" she echoes. 

"I figure I'll start with talking." Hunk reaches into the dispenser with his screwdriver, tightening a set of screws. "Up to them where we go from there."

Pidge bites her lip. "That's… a little scary, Hunk."

Hunk replaces a couple more parts and starts winding the dispenser hose back into its case. "I'm feeling a little scary right now." He gives the hose a final shove and fits the case's cover back into place, then tightens the last of the screws. "You won't believe me, but Lance takes things hard."

He's right; Pidge isn't sure she does believe that. "Lance?"

"Yeah, Lance." Hunk picks up the unit's panel and fits it back into place. He bangs his fist on it till it clicks into place. "The more it matters to him, the harder he works to play it off." He turns that grim expression on Pidge. "Now think about how much of a fool he makes himself over Keith."

Pidge thinks about that and doesn't like the conclusions she's drawing at all. "Shit."

"Yeah." Hunk pushes himself to his feet and holds his hand down to her, hauling her to her feet after him. 

"Maybe I made some kind of mistake," Pidge says, though she honestly has no idea how she could possibly be mistaken by what she saw. 

"Let's hope you did," Hunk says darkly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I—"

The castle-ship's proximity alarm blares across whatever Hunk is going to say, followed swiftly by Allura's urgent voice. "Paladins, you must get to your lions immediately, we have just detected a large Galra fleet on an intercept course with our ship."

Pidge and Hunk are already running, and for once, Pidge thinks she might actually be glad for the Galra. She really wants to fight something right now, and what are the Galra good for if not that?

 

 

There's something weird as hell going on, but damned if Lance can put his finger on what it is. It's not the Galra; they've been in this system for a few days, cycles, whatever, and the Galra are relentless hunters. That's pretty normal, actually. They were just about due. 

Blue is just fine—better than fine, she's awesome, they're moving together like a single entity today, which is good. There's a lot of Galra out there. 

And Keith and Shiro are good, too—he's been synced with them before for Voltron, but he feels like they're moving like a unit today, too, the three of them falling into a rhythm with one another effortlessly. Keith darts in and out of formation, taking out the fighters Lance and Blue have softened up with their ice cannons. Together, he and Keith harry Galra ships into position for Shiro and Black, who take them to pieces almost lazily. It's _great_. Lance knows he's laughing kind of like a maniac, but he's having _fun_. Keith isn't complaining about it and Shiro's not telling him to keep the comm channel clear, so it must be fine. 

The Galra fleet means business, though, so maybe that's the problem. Lance hasn't seen this many Galra warships in one place since they went after the princess at Command Central. They must have been planning this attack on the castle-ship for a while now.

It's like the thought is some kind of jinx. No sooner does it cross Lance's mind than the Galra fleet begins some new maneuver, one that has the giant warships drifting apart to reveal—it looks like just one more ship, not even as large as the rest, not that impressive to look at.

Then the hull cracks open, splits right in two, and disgorges—well, it looks a lot like Voltron, actually, a twisted Galra corruption of Voltron. 

"Shit," Lance says. "What the hell is _that_ thing?"

Shiro's voice comes over the comms, grim. "I don't know, but I bet we're going to need Voltron to beat it."

"No bet here," Lance says, already falling back with Keith to where Allura and Coran will be able to offer covering fire while Voltron comes together. "I'll keep my money right where it belongs, thanks."

He kind of expects Hunk to chime in with something like _what money_ but Hunk doesn't. He's been quiet since the fight started, which isn't too unusual, really, but he generally doesn't pass up a good line when Lance offers it up. Huh. Weird.

For now there's a whole lot of Galra and the fake Galra Voltron out there, so Lance sets that aside and lets himself fall deeper into his bond with Blue, opening his mind up to hers and reaching out to the others. Red-Keith and Black-Shiro are already reaching back, and wow, it's like Lance can feel them taking his hands. He can feel himself grinning helplessly, delighted and not even the ripple of their reactions (amusement from Red-Keith, fondness from Black-Shiro) can dim that. Maybe he'll be embarrassed later. Or maybe he won't.

But they're missing part of the team—where are Green-Pidge and Yellow-Hunk?

Blue-Lance turns to them, looking for them—there they are, hanging back. Not a good idea, not when there's a whole shitload of Galra trying to get a shot at them. Blue-Lance stretches out for them, can feel Red-Keith and Black-Shiro doing the same. Green-Pidge is _there_ , feeling of worry-concern-upset until she sets it aside to reach back. The connection feels tenuous, uncertain—why? 

Black-Shiro echoes the question over the comms. "Pidge, is everything okay over there?"

She's saying that everything is fine, so Blue-Lance is turning for their final piece, reaching for Yellow-Hunk, the other pillar to support them. Yellow-Hunk is there, and for a moment the connection snaps into place—the five of them as one, the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

Then everything goes straight to hell. Yellow-Hunk wrenches away, or maybe he shoves them away, or maybe the connection just shatters, too fragile to sustain the—Lance blinks as the connection falls apart completely—the simmering anger that's rolling off Hunk?

"Hunk, what are you doing?" Keith demands, and both Shiro and the princess echo the question in their own ways: "Hunk, what's going on over there?" and "Paladins, what are you doing, you _must_ form Voltron!"

Which, yeah, stating the obvious there, but damn, Lance isn't sure it's gonna happen. Blue can barely feel Yellow now, and Green may as well not be there at all. 

Lance has a feeling he's figured out what's been weird about this fight, and he doesn't like it one bit.

"Hunk, Pidge, get it together," Shiro is saying. "We need to form Voltron right now."

Which is when Hunk says, "Don't tell me what to do, Shiro."

"What the fuck," Keith says into the sudden shocked silence over the comms. "Hunk, what the hell?"

That's what Lance would like to know himself, except that there's something just a little more pressing taking up his attention. "Guys," he says, urgent, as Hunk snarls at Keith, too, and Allura breaks in with her two cents. "Guys, this really needs to wait—" Because there's only so much interference Allura can run with the castle-ship, and the Galra fleet is moving. The nightmare Voltron is moving, faster than any of the ships.

Blue is moving even as Lance is thinking how much this is really going to suck.

And he's not wrong.

Probably the only reason it works is that the Galra Voltron or whatever the hell it is clearly isn't expecting a full-frontal assault by a single, totally awesome, Lion, so Lance manages to get a solid ice cannon blast in before he and Blue get swatted aside like an inconvenient fly. Blue's alarms start shrieking and her inertial dampeners can't absorb all of the shock—yeah, those are gonna be some really badass looking bruises later. "A little help here, guys?" he yells into the comms as he and Blue dodge some opportunistic Galra fighters. "I know I'm awesome but I don't really feel like doing this all by myself."

He and Blue ice over a fighter drone's exhaust and spin out of the way while its engine overheats; the result explosion takes out a nice chunk of fighters, though not really enough, and oh fuck, the Anti-Voltron is coming back around—

Keith and Shiro are there, cannons blazing, thank fuck, and whatever's got Hunk upset, it's not stopping him or Pidge from tearing into the Galra. So that's okay. 

(It's not okay, but the tense silence over the comms says that dealing with the Galra comes first.)

Hunk rips into the large warships like he's got a personal grudge against each one; Pidge is everywhere at once, flashing in and out of the clusters of fighter drones like she's dancing with them. If dancers made a habit of blowing up their partners. That metaphor might be getting away from him a little.

Lance shrugs it off and dives back into the fray with Blue, flying past the Evil Voltron and laying down a strafing of ice. Keith or Red must be reading his mind, because they're right there with Red's plasma cannon, which can't be good for whatever the knockoff version of Voltron is made out of. Black comes roaring in and rakes her jaw knife over the place he and Keith just hit.

In a just universe, that would be enough to rip through the damn thing's armor, but this isn't a just universe. Black barely leaves a scratch, and the stupid imitation Voltron whips around faster than Lance would have thought possible, backhanding Black and sending her tumbling.

"I'm fine," Shiro says before Lance can do more than take a breath or Keith can get past the start of his name. "Stay focused, guys."

Right. Right, they've got a job to do. Lance grits his teeth. Blue tells him where Red is, where she's going to be, so that means two of them need to be _there_. He comes up inside the fake Voltron's flank as Keith and Red pounce from above, blasting it with everything they've got—"Where the fuck did _that_ come from?" Lance yells, outraged, when it produces a shield to deflect their blasts. (It takes out one of its own warships doing it, but the Galra don't really seem to care about stuff like that.)

Allura breaks in then. "Our scans are showing that Zarkon has—somehow—recreated a form of Voltron." She shouldn't sound as young as she does; it gives Lance chills. But then, if he were facing down a hellish version of his dad's life work, he'd probably be pretty freaked out too.

"Yeah, noticed that already," Keith snaps as he dives out of the way of the thing's sword while Shiro and Lance distract it as best as they can. "Tell us how we're going to beat it."

"I don't know." Okay, now Lance's chills have chills. That's awesome—oh, wait, no it's not. "The scans I'm seeing—he may have created something stronger than Voltron."

"I didn't think anything was supposed to be stronger than Voltron," Pidge says in the strained silence after Allura drops that one on them. 

"It's been more than ten thousand years," Hunk says. "He's had the time to work on it, and maybe he got tired of trying to steal the original."

"It shouldn't be possible," Allura says. "The work, the rituals, everything that went into the original—no one should be able to duplicate that!"

"Zarkon does a lot of things he shouldn't, Princess." Shiro manages to sound sympathetic even while he and Black are raking the Not Voltron with their cannons. "Right now we really need to figure out a way to beat this thing."

"I don't know how you'll be able to do that if you can't form Voltron!"

Which, yeah, there's that. Lance has been trying not to think about that. Shiro kind of sounds the same way when he says, "Just work on it, see what you can come up with, okay?"

That is so much easier said than done, Lance thinks right before Galra Voltron reverses the swing of its sword—that shouldn't be a legal move, it's just not fair—and slices a crackling purple line down Blue's flank. 

Lance yells—or maybe Blue uses his voice to vent her pain as a dozen alarms wail and warning lights flash to life all across his console. He can hear Keith and Shiro yelling his name, but he's a little busy trying to assess the damage done, and okay, now he's _pissed_. "This is bullshit!" he roars into the comms. "Hunk, Pidge, I don't know what the hell is wrong with you, but we need Voltron, like, _yesterday_ , so build a fucking bridge and get the fuck over it!"

"I'm not forming Voltron with a fucking cheater!" Hunk roars back as he and Yellow _destroy_ a warship.

"Wait, what?" Lance says, derailed by bafflement. "Hunk, what the hell, dude?"

"Hunk, is this really the right time to bring this up?" Pidge says; she sounds strained.

Lance could tell her to save her breath; Hunk doesn't get angry often, but when he does, it's usually for a damn good reason and it's next to impossible to get him to stop before the eruption is complete. "Dude, Hunk, what gives?" he asks, diagnostics complete—he and Blue had better not take too many more hits like that one—and flings himself back into the fight, crashing into the rip-off Voltron's sword arm and icing it over before it can take a swipe at Keith.

" _Hunk_ —" Pidge tries again, and Hunk says, "Keith is cheating on you with Shiro."

Wow. That's, what, their third awkward silence of the fight? Their fourth? Lance is distressed by the fact that he's lost count.

"No, I'm not," Keith says, his flat monotone speaking volumes about how annoyed he is right now.

"I saw you kissing Shiro." Pidge sounds miserable. "Right before the attack."

"Yeah, so?" Keith says. "What's your point?"

"We know you and Lance have been sleeping together for months," Hunk growls.

"Aw, geez," Lance says. "Seriously?" He cannot believe this is the way he's coming out to the team. Then again, given his life, he probably should have seen it coming.

"Sorry, Lance." Hunk genuinely does sound sorry. "This really, really isn't how I wanted to tell you." And it wouldn't be; Hunk tries to do these things as gently as he can. Lance should know. 

"Thanks, buddy," Lance manages, despite the very strong urge he has to break into laughter or beat his head against Blue's console, and despite the fact that they're still getting their asses handed to them by the counterfeit Voltron. Jesus, his life. "But I promise, it's okay. Keith isn't cheating on me with Shiro."

"Oh my God." Pidge sounds horrified on top of miserable. "He dumped you for Shiro? That's even worse!"

"I didn't dump anyone for anyone else!" Keith yells, and oh no, that's his _too fed up with you crazy people to pretend to cope_ voice. "We're _both_ sleeping with Shiro!"

Annnnnnd there's awkward silence number whatever it is. 

"What," Pidge says, blank. "You're _what_?"

"We are both fucking Shiro," Keith says, enunciating each syllable with utmost precision. "He's our boyfriend. No one is cheating on anyone. We're all very happy together. Satisfied now, or do you want the details?"

" _Thank you_ , Keith, I'm sure that won't be necessary." Shiro's voice is rather strained, though that _could_ just be from grappling with the fake Voltron and not hideous embarrassment.

Probably not, though. Lance is going to stay in Blue for the rest of his natural life thanks to this entire conversation. (But maybe he'll make exceptions for conjugal visits from his _boyfriends_.) "Okay, great talk, guys, now can we please form Voltron?" he asks.

"Or does anyone else have something awful they want to accuse me of doing?" Keith demands. ("Keith," Shiro says.) "Anyone? No? Great, fantastic, let's go."

Easier said than done, of course, since the Galra don't really want to see them form Voltron, and Zarkon's stupid knock-off version of Voltron is just a pain in the ass in every way possible, but Hunk—who's gone _very_ quiet, not that Lance can blame him—does the robot lion equivalent of body-checking it into a cluster of Galra fighters, which Allura promptly turns the castle-ship's guns on, and that gives them just enough time to fall back and into formation. 

Yellow-Hunk is a deeply embarrassed weight in the pit of Blue-Lance's stomach, counterweight to Red-Keith's outrage simmering in his blood. Green-Pidge is embarrassed, too, but mostly just a breath of curious-relief-happy. And Black-Shiro is very pointedly keeping himself to himself, the lucky jerk. Blue-Lance doesn't know what the rest of them are getting off him, but given the way his day's been going, it's probably going to be whatever will embarrass him the most later.

Seriously. He's going to live in Blue for the rest of his life. There's got to be some kind of space equivalent to pizza delivery service out there somewhere. It'll be fine. 

At least the fight goes better after that. Better, though not easily. 

Zarkon's Voltron-wannabe is a pain in the ass, tougher than it has any right to be, and there's still enough of the Galra fleet left to be a real nuisance while they're trying to put the damn thing down. 

"I was wrong, paladins," Allura says eventually, when they're feeling pretty battered and Fake Voltron isn't looking nearly as good as it had when they started out. She sounds much more like herself, poised and confident. "I was mistaken, it only _looks_ like a copy of Voltron. Our scans are showing that it's a single unit—a single creature, if you like. _That_ is its weakness."

Yeah, great, and Voltron is made up of a team, sure, but they're super not at their cooperative best at the moment. 

But what the hell, they're Voltron, right? 

Blue-Lance can feel the ripple of resolve through their connection, the moment that Green-Pidge feels a nudge from her bayard and says, "Guys, I think I have an idea—"

"Do it," Black-Shiro says before she can finish, and yeah, the Green bayard is as flexible and creative as its paladin and Lion. For Voltron, it becomes a curving scythe-like blade on a long chain, one they can send singing through the vacuum to tangle around the Anti-Voltron's legs and torso. The blade bites deep, and Red-Keith is already there with the sword. They drive it through the thing's torso, angled up to crunch through what would be the brainstem on a human, and they _all_ yell together when the malevolent purple light in its eyes flickers and dies.

After that there's still the mop-up to do; the Galra either don't know how to cut their losses and run or are suicidally committed to their empire's cause. Not one of the ships withdraws, not even when the vacuum around the castle-ship is littered with the detritus of their destruction. 

Blue-Lance doesn't know whose sickness he feels at the sheer scale of the slaughter; it might belong to all of them. It probably does. It's a relief when Allura calls for them to withdraw, says that she can hold the remains of the flee at bay long enough to get them and the castle-ship through a wormhole to a safer star system.

By the time they disengage from Voltron, Lance is exhausted and aching from the beating he and Blue have taken. It's not until he's riding the elevator up from Blue's hangar to the command floor for the post-battle debrief that he remembers his resolve to stay in Blue forever and ever amen, but that was a shitty plan anyway. Blue is awesome, but she doesn't have a shower stall or a bathtub he can soak his bruises in, so that's that. 

Keith makes it to the command hall ahead of him; he's standing back, arms folded and a glare on his face, pointedly ignoring the Alteans. His expression clears some when Lance enters the room. "There you are." He comes to meet Lance, reaches out for him—okay, that's new, they haven't done this in front of people before, but Keith touches his shoulder anyway, gentle. "How bad is it?"

Lance shrugs, but carefully. "Bruises, I think. Not fun, but I'll live. Blue's gonna need some work, though."

"It looked that way," Keith agrees. He looks at Lance then, quick and searching, before he slides his hand from Lance's shoulder down and takes his hand. 

Lance looks at him, startled, but—he's not complaining. Not at all. Holding hands, that's a thing, that's totally a thing boyfriends do.

Keith huffs out a breath. "I can't _believe_ you sometimes," he mutters, whatever that's supposed to mean, but—that's going to have to be a thing for later.

Pidge comes through the door, raking her fingers through her hair to fluff it up to its natural state, and stops when she sees the two of them standing together. "Huh. Well, that's going to get disgustingly sappy in no time flat." She comes to them and reaches up to punch Lance in the arm, which is when he realizes he's been smiling like an idiot. "Congratulations." She squares her shoulders and looks to Keith. "Sorry," she tells him. "But in my defense, there's no way I saw a threesome being the likely outcome of your guys' whole thing. And there wasn't any time to figure it out before the Galra showed up."

Keith beetles his brows together, not mollified. "Why the hell not."

"Please don't answer that, my ego really can't handle it," Lance says.

Keith scowls at him. "You _idiot_."

"Yep." Pidge shakes her head. "Disgustingly sappy already. Ugh." She pointedly walks away from them and joins the princess and Coran's discussion of the fake Voltron's likely origins.

Keith shakes Lance's hand, demanding his attention. "I mean it," he says, pitching his voice low. "You're the universe's biggest idiot, how did you not _know_?"

"Know what?" Lance says, equally low.

Keith gives him an impatient look. "How important you are, moron. How did you not know that?" When Lance gives him a blank look, he adds, "To me. To us. How did you _miss_ that?"

Lance feels his face go hot. Aw, geez. "It's not like you ever said anything."

"Why would I when it was so _obvious_?" Keith demands. 

"Maybe to you," Lance says. "Most of the time I still can't tell what the heck is going on inside your head, you know that."

"Then why didn't you ask?" Keith says, exasperated. "If you didn't know, why didn't you try to find out?"

Lance bites his lip, but Keith is so intent that he's going to have to explain himself somehow. "I didn't want to find out if it wasn't—if I wasn't important," he says slowly. "To you. I didn't want to know for sure that I wasn't."

Keith stares at him. "Didn't you think you were?"

"I wanted to be," Lance says.

Keith narrows his eyes. "That's not an answer."

_Damn it._ "Sometimes I did," Lance confesses quietly. "Sometimes I wasn't sure. Either way, I was always pretty sure Shiro came first."

Keith hisses through his teeth, which he appears to be clenching. "Then why the fuck were you even bothering? Why would you do that to yourself?"

Lance has to smile at that, however ruefully. Keith doesn't get it, and he's honestly glad of it. "Way I figure it, if you're coming in second to Takashi Shirogane, you're doing pretty damn well for yourself."

"You're not coming in second to _anyone_ ," Keith says. "You moron, I may have fallen in love with him first, but that doesn't mean I love him _more_ than you."

Lance stares at Keith, feeling his jaw gone slack as static crackles between his ears. He says Keith's name, too astonished to do anything else.

Keith presses his lips together so tightly that they go white. "Damn it, Lance. I thought you _knew_."

Lance shakes his head, brain still fizzing with wonder. "I had no idea." 

Keith blows out a breath. " _Damn it_." he lets go of Lance's hand and reaches up, laying his hands on Lance's cheeks, dragging him close so they're eye to eye. "I'll use small words, then. _Yes_. I love you. _Not_ second-best or as a substitute. I love _you_. Got it?"

Lance has to clear his throat before he can make his voice work properly. "Yeah. I got it." He slides his arms around Keith and leans his forehead against Keith's. "I—me too. You know that, right?"

"Yeah." Some of the exasperation has eased out of Keith's voice. "You and Blue aren't subtle at all."

Lance closes his eyes and groans. "Oh my God, seriously? Shit."

"Idiot." Keith reaches up and runs his fingers through the sweat-soaked strands of Lance's hair. "It was nice."

Lance peeks at him from behind his eyelashes. Keith is smiling. "Yeah?"

"Yeah." Keith cups the back of his head, the pressure of his hand turning heavier, urging Lance forward until their mouths meet.

Okay, Lance thinks, dazed, maybe living out the rest of his natural life in Blue was a silly plan to begin with. This is by far the superior option, and not even the fake gagging noises Pidge is making can change his mind about that.

 

 

Hunk is honestly glad that Shiro interrupts him on the way from Yellow's hangar up to the command hall. It saves him the trouble of having to find Shiro himself. "Hunk," Shiro says before he can enter the elevator. "Can we talk?"

Yeah, he's glad Shiro did it, but that doesn't mean he's looking forward to this, either. Hunk steps away from the elevator anyway and joins Shiro in the corridor. It feels only appropriate to face him at attention. "I apologize for my behavior and for endangering the team and our mission. I made a mistake and handled it badly, and I am very sorry for the trouble I've caused."

This isn't what Shiro is expecting to hear at all; he can tell by the way he widens his eyes slightly. He inclines his head, acknowledging the apology. "Thank you, Hunk." Then he drops the formality, lays it aside, and gives Hunk a frank look. "You and Lance are good friends. I can understand why you'd be upset on his behalf if you thought he was being treated badly."

"I didn't know he wasn't," Hunk says. He shakes his head before Shiro can say anything. "I didn't know anything. He never has said anything to me about it, not about you or Keith." He's tried not to be hurt by that and has a pretty good idea why Lance hasn't said anything. It still stings.

"He hasn't?" Shiro frowns; Hunk can see him putting that together with the things that had been rolling off Lance while they'd been in Voltron—awestruck, giddy joy, effervescent like champagne.

"No," Hunk tells him. "Not a word. He's probably been playing it by ear, trying not to assume anything. I'm guessing it hasn't occurred to Keith or you to say anything, so he's not going to risk overstepping."

Shiro doesn't respond to that, not right away, and Hunk can't tell what he's thinking. He releases a breath after a minute, slow and controlled. "Do you happen to know who taught him that particular behavior? Because I'd really like to look them up once we get back to Earth."

Hunk relaxes. Okay, yeah. That's the appropriate reaction. "I wish I did. I've always wanted to do something like that myself, but he's been like this as long as I've known him."

"Hm." Shiro's gaze goes distant for a moment before he shakes his head. "I'd thought he knew—but I suppose I should have known better, given how this started." He shakes his head again. "One more thing to work on, I suppose."

"There always is, with him." Hunk presses his hands together, lacing his fingers. "You are serious about this, right? About Lance, I mean. I know you're serious about Keith."

"Of course I am." He seems to have actually offended Shiro with the question; he's just batting a thousand today. Shiro shakes it off faster than Hunk imagines Keith will, though. He frowns. "Hunk. Can you tell me—" He stops and frowns, runs his hand through his hair. "No, I should ask Lance, he's the one who gets to decide what we should know."

Okay. He's not going to say he's not still worried, because he is, but it's more like his normal, ground-state kind of worried, which he can live with. "He's had some bad luck," Hunk says, which must be obvious to Shiro at this point. Shiro nods, affirming that. "And I don't think he actually knows how to do anything partway." He and Keith are like a matched set that way. "But he's not like Keith, he cares what people think about him."

That's not exactly right, and Shiro can see that, too. He purses his lips. "He cares what they think, or he's learned that people can use what he cares about against him?"

"Second one, I think," Hunk says, relieved.

Shiro nods, looking like that settles something for him. "I'll bet he was the class clown, wasn't he?"

"Oh, yeah." Hunk sighs. "The things he could turn into a joke…" That hasn't changed at all.

Shiro nods again. "I see." He regards Hunk in silence for a bit before saying, "I'll be honest with you. I never expected this—either one of them—and I don't know the rules for how to make this work. All three of us are messed up, and it's probably going to be messy sometimes. I don't even know if it'll _work_ , long-term. But I do know this: I _want_ it to work, and I'm doing everything I can to make that happen." He stops, draws a breath, and spreads his hands. "I don't have any idea why I'm so lucky that I get to have them both, but I'm incredibly grateful that I do. I'm going to do everything I can to make sure neither of them ever regrets that."

Shiro is telling him this for a reason, so Hunk straightens his shoulders and nods. "I believe you. I'm sorry that I ever thought otherwise." He shakes his head. "I know better of you than that, I really do. So I'm sorry."

"It's already forgotten," Shiro answers him, smiling. "And when you talk to Keith, if you start with why Lance is so important to you, I think he'll understand, too."

Hunk winces. He's really not looking forward to having this conversation with Keith, who is _much_ less inclined to be as forgiving as Shiro can be. "I'll keep that in mind, I guess."

Shiro chuckles and claps his shoulder. "Fair enough. You may also have to let him wipe the training deck floor with you before he gets it all the way out of his system."

Hunk grimaces. "That does sound more like the Keith we all know and love."

Shiro laughs outright and squeezes his shoulder. "Are we all right now?"

Hunk thinks it over, careful. "Yeah," he decides. "I think we are."

"Good." Shiro tips his head at the elevator. "Let's go get this debrief over with, then."

"Sounds good," Hunk says. He's still got his tweaks to the food goo dispenser to test out, after all.

 

 

Keith really isn't feeling it when Shiro finally shows up, Hunk trailing along behind him, and gives him a meaningful sort of look. He doesn't really want to kiss and make up with Hunk, even if Shiro's already done it. Even if it has technically worked out for the best, given that Lance is absolutely clueless about everything. Maybe less clueless now. He's not feeling it and pulls a face at Shiro, who doesn't budge, just gives him one of those looks that are so _full_ of expectation that Keith is a better person than he actually is. 

Ugh. _Fine_.

He hauls Lance over to Shiro (Lance is still pink, all soft-edged smiles and dreamy eyes; Keith doesn't trust him to have the self-preservation instincts of a concussed duckling at this point) and shoves him at Shiro. "Keep an eye on this for me."

Shiro promptly wraps his arms around Lance, who goes red and sort of squeaks. "Of course."

("Oh my God," Pidge says. "It's going to be even worse than I thought.")

Keith nods at Shiro, then jerks his head at Hunk. "All right, come on." He has no idea what Hunk is going to have to say for himself, but he'll be damned if he lets him say anything in front of Lance that might undo all his hard work.

Hunk follows him out to the corridor meekly enough; as soon as the doors close behind him, he says, "I'm sorry."

Keith folds his arms across his chest and stares hard at Hunk. "You accused me of cheating on Lance. With _Shiro_." He can almost forgive the insult to himself, but to imply Shiro would do something like that to Lance—yeah, no. That's unforgivable.

"I know, I'm sorry, I wasn't even thinking. The two of you—you're not like that, I know you're not. You wouldn't do that to someone you were involved with."

"Damn right we wouldn't." Keith scowls at him.

Hunk nods and knots his hands together. "I know. I'm sorry, Keith, I really am, it's just—Lance is like my brother. I didn't want to see him get hurt like that ever again, so when Pidge told me what she'd seen—I lost my head a little."

Keith blinks. "Again?" he repeats. 

Hunk nods. "It's his story, so you can ask him about it. But… yeah. It's happened to him before, and it was really hard on him. It took him a long time to even be able to talk about it with me afterwards." He looks at Keith, utterly serious. "And that was with someone he hadn't even gotten all that serious about. Not the way he's serious about you." He pauses and amends that. "You and Shiro now, I guess."

It doesn't make sense to Keith that anyone who had Lance, actually had him, would choose to throw that away, but he doesn't think Hunk is lying. It fits all too well with the way Lance reacts to things sometimes. God, people are dumb. Give him magic robot space lions any day. "I'm still mad at you," he tells Hunk, who nods like he expected that much. "But I guess it worked out okay. Cleared some things up, anyhow."

Hunk's smile lights his face. "Did it? I'm glad." He really does seem to be, too. "You guys make him really happy."

Keith snorts; that much he does know after getting a taste of Lance's mood while they were fighting as Voltron. _Happy_ is such an understatement, and he can't help wondering what Lance's mood would be now. He wants to smile at the thought—which makes it hard to stay properly angry with Hunk—so he clears his throat. "Yeah, well, we try." He fixes a frown on his face. "The next time you think you have a problem with me, you say something, got it? I don't care if Zarkon himself is knocking on the door, I want to know about it."

Hunk nods at him soberly. "All right, I will."

"Good." Keith jerks his chin back at the command hall. "Now let's get this over with, he got banged around pretty good and I want to get him in a hot bath before he stiffens up too badly."

Hunk actually grins at him. "I'm so glad I don't have to pretend I don't know anything about the two of you—three of you—any more. I was about to go crazy."

Keith stares at him, but decides to let it go. Even pissed off, he can't blame that on Hunk. "Yeah. Maybe Pidge will even get around to feeling that way, too, at some point."

Hunk seems to have some doubts on that. "Well, maybe."

When Keith opens the door, Pidge is in the middle of declaiming rules about allowable displays of affection in the shared areas of the castle-ship, so Keith doesn't think he'll be holding his breath while waiting for her to come around.

 

 

Shiro keeps the debrief short and brisk on the principle that they're all tired and at least a little banged up, and the princess lets him get away with it, though her smile is knowing. It probably can't be anything but knowing, since he spends the debrief with Lance tucked under his arm and wearing a soft little smile of his own. It's less distracting than he would have expected it to be, somehow—just feels right—and so does the way Keith settles in on Lance's other side, glaring at the rest of the team like he's daring them to object.

Nobody does, of course.

The princess does approach the three of them once they've called an end to the meeting. "I will not keep you long," she says—ah, Keith is frowning at her. Shiro reaches over to squeeze his shoulder, but the frown stays put. 

Allura turns her smile on Shiro. "I apologize for not having recognized this change in your bond any sooner. Please, feel free to explore the other quarters the castle has to offer and pick one that will accommodate you all comfortably." Her smile stretches a bit wider, turns mischievous. "I'm sure your current quarters must feel a bit confining at times."

The first thing any officer-track cadet learns is to keep a straight face in front of the brass, even in the most trying of circumstances, so Shiro inclines his head. "Thank you, Princess, that's very generous of you."

Allura waves this aside with a smile. "Please, think nothing of it. Good evening, gentlemen." She drifts away again.

"Huh," Lance says after a moment. "Did we just get told to move in together?"

"No, we were told we _could_ move in together if we wanted," Keith corrects him as Shiro begins to steer Lance towards the door. Lance moves stiffly, as if in pain; Blue _did_ take a lot of battering during the fight. Shiro debates whether to take him straight to the infirmary or not, but decides to wait until he's had a chance to look him over first. 

"Oh," Lance says as they hobble along. "Huh." He hesitates. " _Do_ we want to move in together?"

"We don't have to decide right now," Shiro says before anyone can say anything to that. "I think that's something we can talk about when we're not still wound up from fighting the Galra. And from other things."

"Oh," Lance says. "Yeah, that's a good idea."

But Keith is scrunching his face up, sort of the way Shiro feels like doing himself. Lance doesn't sound convinced. 

Keith sucks on his teeth until they hit the elevator; once they're inside, he says, "I think we should. It's the boyfriend kind of thing to do." He meets Shiro's eyes, deliberate. "Don't you think?"

Who the hell taught Keith to be so good at strategy, Shiro wonders, though he knows he really only has himself to blame for that one. A boyfriend kind of thing to do, when he can still feel the way that word made Lance _glow_ while they'd been in formation. Even now it makes Lance's entire face go soft and open, his wonder plain to see. "I suppose it is, at that." He looks at Lance. "I don't want anyone to feel rushed into doing something they're not ready for." But then, there's the things Hunk said about Lance following their lead, trying not to let on what _he_ wants, not sure he's allowed to want the things he wants. "That said, I think I'd like to give it a try, if the two of you feel the same way."

Lance looks at him, wide-eyed, as the elevator halts on the floor with their quarters. None of them moves when the door slides open. Lance looks at Keith, who gives him a steady look in return as he inclines his head just a bit. Lance passes his tongue over his lips. "I—" His voice is raspy; he stops and clears his throat. "I would really like that. To move in with you. With my boyfriends."

"Okay," Shiro says. "We can take some time tomorrow and look around, see what all the castle has to offer."

"Okay," Lance says, then repeats himself, his voice soft. "Okay."

"Yeah, it is," Keith says, clearly satisfied, and tugs them off the elevator. "Come on. You need a hot bath and some aspirin."

"Space aspirin," Lance corrects him.

"Just because something is in space doesn't mean you should automatically label it a space thing," Keith says, to which Lance replies, "But it's not _earth_ -aspirin, so we have to be able to tell it apart somehow, right?"

Shiro follows after them—after his boyfriends—smiling as they launch into their favorite argument. Yeah. They're going to be just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually technically complete! I just didn't like it.


End file.
